Sardinia, from hidden coves to nuraghi

Round the island

The route goes round Sardinia by the coast, with detours inland. In the north-east, Gallura is granite country: boulders rounded by the wind, scrub and coves of turquoise water. On this almost empty shore, Prince Karim Aga Khan founded the Costa Smeralda consortium in 1962. The coves of the Costa Smeralda became the best-known image of the island.

To the west, a coast road runs beside the sea, from Alghero to Bosa, whose coloured houses climb towards a castle. In the centre, the Barbagia is a land of mountains and shepherds’ villages. The Romans called it Barbaria: its tribes escaped their law. In Orgosolo, more than two hundred murals cover the façades; the first dates from 1969.

To the east, the limestone of the Supramonte drops into the sea. In places, the walls of the Gorropu gorge are more than five hundred metres high. On the Gulf of Orosei, most coves can only be reached on foot or by boat. Cala Goloritzé, below its 143-metre spire, can only be reached on foot.

Everywhere, by the roadside, stand towers older than Rome. The people who built them left no writing. They also raised the giants’ tombs, as at Coddu Vecchiu, and dug sacred wells. At Santa Cristina, at noon on the equinoxes, the sun lights the stairway down to the water.

Older still, the domus de janas, the “fairy houses”, are tombs cut into the rock. They have been on the World Heritage List since 2025.

One island, several languages

Before Latin, the island wrote in Phoenician. The Nora Stone, found in 1773 near Pula, is considered the oldest Phoenician inscription known outside the Levant. Today Cagliari is also Casteddu on the road signs: the region has recognised Sardinian since 1997. In the north, people speak Gallurese, close to Corsican.

In Alghero, people speak Catalan. In 1354 Peter IV of Aragon took the town and replaced its inhabitants with Catalan settlers. One resident in two can still speak Algherese, and the streets carry two names.

What not to miss

1. 1Capo TestaA granite headland sculpted by the wind, facing Corsica.
2. 2La PelosaWhite sand, a watchtower on its islet and, opposite, Asinara, a prison island closed to the public until 1999.
3. 3Neptune’s GrottoSea permitting, you go down 654 steps clinging to the cliff of Capo Caccia, or by boat from Alghero from April to October.
4. 4The coast road from Alghero to BosaA balcony road above the sea, below the heights where griffon vultures nest.
5. 5TharrosA Phoenician then Roman city at the tip of the Sinis; the giants of Mont’e Prama are on show in Cabras, close by.
6. 6Cagliari’s CastelloThe Pisans’ upper town, its fourteenth-century towers and the Saint-Remy bastion.

Sardinia in pictures

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The giants’ tomb of Coddu Vecchiu, near Arzachena, and its great rounded stele.

The Sardinian table

Sardinian cuisine is first of all a shepherds’ cuisine. Pane carasau is a crisp flatbread nicknamed “music paper”. Porceddu, roast suckling pig, is eaten on feast days. In Ogliastra, culurgiones are potato, pecorino and mint ravioli, sealed like an ear of wheat.

The bottarga of grey mullet from the Cabras lagoon is the most prized. You finish with a seada, a fried cheese pastry dipped in honey, and a glass of mirto, the myrtle liqueur. Cannonau is the island’s great red; Vermentino di Gallura, its only DOCG.