6 Reasons to Visit Cagliari Instead of Costa Smeralda
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.
