SARDINIA OFF THE BEATEN PATH: BEACHES, STONES & CRAFTMANS

Relax and discover the enchanting Porto Cervo, a village built in the 60s by the Aga Khan, with its exclusive boutiques. The next day you will head first to San Pantaleo, where the most sought-after craft market in Italy is held, and then from Canniggione a boat will take you to explore the pristine La Maddalena archipelago. On the way back, the winemakers of a local Wine Estate will introduce you to discover the Vermentino wine. The next day you will travel westward and visit the Romanesque jewel of the Holy Trinity of Saccargia. For lunch you will stop at the dazzling white Pelosa beach, where you will enjoy a lunch “pieds dans l’eau”, and then visit the spectacular Grotta di Nettuno at Capo Caccia. You will fianlly reach the lovely Catalan town of Alghero.

Along one of the most spectacular panoramic roads in Italy, you will reach Bosa, a charming village on the banks of the Temo river where you will visit the Deriu Museum and the Conce Museum. After a gorgeous lunch on the beach, you will return to Alghero and visit the workshop of an amazing local fashion designer of Antonio Marras and also meet with a trio of jewelers creating awesome jewels in filigree and coral. Leaving Alghero the next morning, you head inland with a first stop at S. Pietro di Sorres, a church whose interior seems to have been taken from a painting by Escher and then to Nuoro, the capital of Barbagia, the most inviolable and secret part of the island. Here you will visit workshops specialized in wood carving, iron working and velvet tailoring.

A whole day of sea and relaxation awaits you in the Gulf of Orosei, where a small boat will take you to visit the wonders of the coast between Cala Gonone and Punta Goloritzè, also entering the famous Grotta del Bue Marino. The next day, move south with a first stop at the mysterious and triangular Pozzo di Santa Cristina where you will also visit a Nuragic settlement. It is just a preview of the great statues of the Giants of Monte Prama in Oristano, on the road that leads to the sunny peninsula of Sinis, a marine protected area where we will stop for a delicious lunch and which houses the exciting archaeological area of Tharros is the small village of San Salvador, used in the past also as a film set. In the afternoon, you move towards Arbus with its dune beach, the largest in Italy, where you will spend the night in an amazing property.

Leaving the dunes of Piscinas you take a boat for a day long boat tour along this spectacular stretch of coast which hosts the incredible entrance of the mine of Santa Flavia and then dock at the Island of San Pietro where you will visit one of the last Tonnare (tuna fish processing workshop) still active and where a pesto-based lunch awaits you, given that the delightful village of Carloforte is still inhabited by Ligurian descendants. After lunch, the boat will take you further south to Chia, to the extreme southern point of Sardinia, Capo Spartivento, where we will sleep in the old Lighthouse building. The next morning you head to Santadi, where you will meet  with an the artist and a production designer. From Santadi you will move to Assemini where you will visit the salt pans of Saline Conti Vecchi, and a colorful ceramics workshop and a bags & woven fabrics workshops.