When people tell me they're going to Sardinia and heading straight to Costa Smeralda, I always say the same thing: come to Cagliari first. As our poet Fabrizio De Andre once wrote, this island gives you 'twenty-four thousand kilometres of forests, countryside, and coastline immersed in a miraculous sea.' Most of that beauty is in the south, where I live. Here's what you'd be missing.
1. Poetto Beach — 10 Kilometres of Sea, Right in the City
I swim at Poetto almost every morning in summer. It's a 10-kilometre arc of golden sand just minutes from the city centre, and the kind of beach most European resort towns would build their entire identity around. The water is clear, the atmosphere is relaxed, and the locals are actually there — not just tourists.
Costa Smeralda has beautiful beaches. But you'll find equally beautiful coastline all across Sardinia, at better prices and with far fewer crowds. Poetto is ours, and it is extraordinary.
2. Pink Flamingos, Right Next to the Beach
Behind Poetto there's a nature reserve — the Molentargius lagoon — home to one of Europe's largest colonies of pink flamingos. I grew up watching them from the road and I still stop to look. Hundreds of them, wading in shallow water with the city behind them.
Most visitors heading north from the airport never know this exists. It is one of the things that makes Cagliari entirely unlike anywhere else.
3. Three Thousand Years of History to Walk Through
My city has been continuously inhabited since before the Romans arrived. The Castello quarter, the medieval hilltop district where I spend my evenings, sits above the city on a limestone ridge with old walls, narrow streets, and cafe terraces looking out over the port, the sea, and the flamingo lagoon.
Forty minutes south is Nora: an ancient Roman city where mosaic floors and theatre walls run straight into the Tyrrhenian Sea. Back in the city, the National Archaeological Museum tells the full story, from the mysterious Nuragic culture 4,000 years ago to the Roman period. I consider it one of the finest museums in Italy.
4. The Sant'Efisio Festival — Nothing Like It Exists Anywhere Else
If you can visit around May 1st, please do. The procession of Sant'Efisio is Sardinia's most important festival: a four-day event where thousands of pilgrims in traditional Sardinian costume walk from Cagliari to the coastal village of Pula, with ox-drawn carts, folk musicians, and devotion that has been continuous since 1657.
I have watched it every year of my life and it still moves me. There is nothing comparable anywhere else on the island, or in Italy.
5. The Food Is the Real Deal
Sardinian cuisine is unlike anything else in Italy, and Cagliari is where you eat it best. Culurgiones, pasta parcels sealed with a braided edge, stuffed with potato and Pecorino and mint. Spaghetti with bottarga that tastes of the sea. Roast suckling pig from a street vendor. Seadas is a fried pastry filled with fresh cheese and drizzled with bitter honey.
Cannonau is our red wine: earthy and rich, grown in this same volcanic soil. Vermentino is our white: crisp and mineral, made for seafood. In the wine bars of the Castello quarter, you'll find both for very little money.
6. You Get More Island for Your Money
I'll be direct: Costa Smeralda is a brand. The restaurants, hotels, and beach clubs are priced for a very specific clientele. For the same budget in Cagliari, you eat better, stay somewhere with real character, and come home having seen the actual Sardinia.
The world-class beaches are 30 to 60 minutes away by car or public transport. You're not sacrificing anything. You're gaining everything.
About the author: Walter Zedda
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