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The Complete Guide to Sardinia

Invaded by Romans, Carthaginians and celebrities, this floating chunk of Italy fizzes with festivals, fortresses and top beaches, writes Frank Partridge

The architecture of Sardinia betrays a strong Spanish and Catalan influence, although there are still more than 7,000 structures left behind from the time of the Nuraghe people around 1800 BC

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A Fragment of Italy Way Out In The Med

While Sardinia is a part of Italy, it is very definitely apart from it - geographically, culturally and linguistically. "What there is in Sardinia there is not in Italy; nor is there in Sardinia what there is in Italy." Those were the words of a visiting Jesuit priest, in the 18th century, and they still hold true today. The Mediterranean's second-largest island is marginally closer to Africa than the Italian mainland, while the southern tip of Corsica, which belongs to France, is just 12km across the Strait of Bonifacio.

The Main Attractions?

The combination of its peerless Mediterranean climate - freshened by strong sea breezes that can spring from nowhere on the calmest of days - its clear, turquoise waters, and its multitude of white, sandy beaches along 1,900km of coastline, make Sardinia the classic summer holiday destination, attracting backpacker and big spender alike. But it has much more to offer than beach-life. From the mysterious Nuraghic people, whose megalithic towers have survived virtually intact for more than 3,000 years, followed by the Carthaginians and Romans, the Pisans and Spanish, one invading power after another has left its distinctive mark, in bustling towns and remote plains, hilltops and nearby islands. Sardinia's interior mountain region, a sparsely populated wilderness of jagged crags and deep gorges, offers some of the best hiking and caving in Europe, and remains essentially as D H Lawrence found it in 1921: "a savage, dark-bushed, sky-exposed land". In the west, the island contains an area of near-desert, inhabited by a unique, indigenous breed of wild horse; in the north, a valley of bare granite has been sculpted by wind, sea and time into a landscape resembling the surface of the moon; in the south, its salt lagoons attract a phenomenal volume of birds, breaking their journey between Europe and Africa; and in its capital city, Cagliari, the ancient and modern worlds are pleasingly conjoined along one of the Mediterranean's most eye-catching waterfronts. Within a relatively small landmass, Sardinia offers a bit of everything.

Cagliari: A Match For The Great Italian Cities?

This city of less than a quarter of a million people still has some way to go to live down its reputation - mainly promulgated by mainland Italians - of being a provincial backwater, scarred by the Allied bombing of the Second World War and the post-war construction, with minimal landscaping, of giant petrochemical refineries. In parts, it has a neglected air; too many walls and buildings are splattered with graffiti, but Cagliari has many charms to set against its pockets of unsightliness.

The city is built on seven hills, providing numerous lofty promenades and viewpoints. Its surviving bastion wall, two medieval watchtowers and imposing cathedral occupy a superb position overlooking a wide bay, with a shimmering lagoon and a pale blue mountain range in the distance. Below them, leading to the seafront, are elegant 19th-century streets decorated with jacaranda trees, and running alongside the harbour is the magnificent palm-lined promenade of the Via Roma, with swish department stores and cafés shaded by colonnades.

And Culturally?

Enough to keep you absorbed for an afternoon or two. The key venues are all loftily perched in the Castello district, amid the ancient walls and walkways that gave the medieval city an air of impregnability. The façade of the 13th-century Santa Maria Assunta Cathedral has endured several facelifts, but is worth visiting for its collection of religious artworks and immense, 14th-century stone pulpit. Also of interest is the Torre di San Pancrazio, one of two soaring, defensive towers built by the Pisans, and the National Archaeological Museum - one of four museums in a modern cluster - which contains all you need to know about Sardinia from prehistoric times to the Romans and Etruscans. Since this period embraces the entire Nuraghic period, of which no written record exists, the two floors of delicately worked bronze figures and ceramics are as close as you'll get to a sense of their art, crafts, and what they might have looked like. Cagliari's partially restored Roman amphitheatre, built into a hillside west of the city centre, stages regular musical and theatrical performances on summer evenings. Even if you don't entirely understand what's going on, the views of the city walls to the east, and the setting sun to the west, will stay long in the memory.

The Most Fashionable Resorts

The Costa Smeralda has been one of the premier haunts for Europe's beautiful people on vacation since a consortium led by the Aga Khan developed a 50km strip of the north-east coastline in the 1960s. The densely wooded hills overlooking bays, coves and some outstandingly beautiful beaches that can only be reached by boat, contain some of the most exclusive villas and hotels in the Mediterranean. Silvio Berlusconi owns several properties here, and visiting luminaries have recently included Bill Gates, Roman Abramovich, Rod Stewart and Tony Blair. Every property in the resorts of Porto Cervo and Cale di Volpe - their marinas bulging with superyachts, their shopping centres with frighteningly expensive boutiques - has to conform to a central design plan intended to harmonise the buildings with the environment, using local granite and limestone finished in subtle pastel tones. Whether the faintly Moroccan style of architecture enhances or blots the landscape is open to question, but what's not in doubt is that the Costa Smeralda's season lasts barely three months, whereupon it reverts to being a remarkably well-manicured but somewhat chilling ghost town. Not far beyond the security gates, there are exquisite beaches at Cannigione and the offshore island of La Maddalena, where the rest of us can afford to stay. An hour's drive to the south, there's another stretch of fine beaches between San Teodoro and Capo Comino.

And The North-West?

The 1,000-year-old port of Alghero is one of the island's gems. Unlike the Costa Smeralda, it bustles all year round, radiating out from its compact old town of narrow stone streets, alleyways and piazzas, blocked off from the sea by the thick wall of the fortress it once was. The most intriguing aspect of Alghero is that it resembles a tiny piece of northern Spain that has floated across the Mediterranean. Colonised by the Catalans around 1350, it became known as Barceloneta, or "Little Barcelona", and its architecture, dialect and food remain strongly Catalan-flavoured, even though the Spaniards were removed nearly three centuries ago. The town has an excellent beach, and there are further sandy resorts to the north, as well as spectacular cliffs and caves at Capo Caccia, accessible by road or on a three-hour round-trip by boat.

The Wordless Ancients

There's a saying in Sardinia that roughly translates as "A modern builder guarantees his work for five years: the Nuraghic builder guaranteed his for 5,000." They haven't lasted quite that long yet, but some of the 7,000 conical basalt structures to be found in every corner of the island have been standing since 1800BC, and show no sign of collapsing despite their being constructed without mortar or any kind of binding agent between the dry stones. Adding to their mystique is that the people who built the Nuraghes left no written records, so almost nothing is known about their way of life, or what happened to them. The Nuraghic fortresses open to modern-day visitors were so reliable that successive invaders - Phoenicians, Romans and Byzantines - extended the structures for their own use and built settlements around them. At Nuraghe Losa, lying in splendid isolation within sight of the main road (SS131) about 30km north-east of Oristano, a winding stone stairway gives access to two of the original three storeys of a 3,400-year-old fortress and several ancillary buildings dotted around the site.

Eel Pie And The Sardinian Secret of Long Life

As in so many things, it's Italian - with a twist. Instead of bread, some restaurants offer as a starter su pani carasau: a crisp, wafer-thin starter not dissimilar to an Indian poppadum, and taken with salt and olive oil. Among the dishes unique to the island is malloredus, a small, grooved pasta flavoured with saffron and served with tomato sauce and cheese. Many of the local cheeses are made from sheep's milk - there are more than three million sheep in an island of 1.7 million people - and cheese features in the traditional dessert, sebadas, filling a pastry which is then smothered in honey to balance the savoury with the sweet. Panadas is a round pie filled with meat, vegetables or eels, while in the coastal areas much of the fish is barbecued.

Sardinian wines, mainly produced from vines pruned back to avoid wind damage, are rich and hearty. The best reds are generally derived from the local cannonau grape; for whites, which have an amber hue, look out for Vermentino and Vernaccia. Some of these wines are made by the traditional method of allowing the grapes to ferment for three to four weeks, producing a chemical reaction that's said to stave off heart disease, and explains why the inhabitants of Sardinia's rural areas have the highest life expectancy in the world. An old wives' tale? No one's produced a more convincing explanation of why, if you live in the central province of Nuoro, your chances of living to 100 are more than three times the Western average.

Getting there and staying there

Ryanair (0871 246 0000; www.ryanair.com) has year-round services to Alghero. James Villa Holidays offer packages to Sardinia. Visit www.jamesvillas.ie for details. Go to www.charmingsardinia.com for a collection of small, luxury boutique hotels on the island.