We’d always wanted to sail together, but not out on the open ocean. We were after something gentler: a quiet trip through warm water, past sunlit islands. The moment we saw the boat waiting for us, we knew it was exactly the one we’d been picturing – a classic hull brought fully up to date, with an engine as well as sails, and an Italian crew who kept the coffee and food coming all day.
Four days isn’t long for an island this size, and we knew that before we’d even landed. What we hadn’t quite banked on was how much Sardinia would ask us to slow down anyway – the roads wind, the lunches run long, and nobody on this island seems to be in much of a hurry. By the time we were driving back to the airport, we’d already started talking about when we’d come back.
Getting there: Alghero and the drive across the island
We flew into Alghero-Fertilia Airport on a Ryanair route from Frankfurt, on the island’s north-west coast. Alghero itself has a distinctly Catalan character – it was ruled by the Crown of Aragon for centuries, and the old town’s street signs still appear in Catalan alongside Italian – but we didn’t linger, since our route lay east, across to the other side of the island.
We’d booked a hire car through myCarHire.co.uk (which does not seem to be working anymore), which pooled inventory from operators across mainland Europe and the islands. Three days cost us £84, with the car collected straight from the airport. We haven’t used this particular supplier since, so we’d recommend checking current prices, availability and reviews on other sites before booking.
The drive across to Costa Smeralda took us through a changing landscape – granite outcrops, cork oak forest and glimpses of mountains before the coast opened up again. It’s the kind of drive that’s better shared: one of you watches the road, the other watches the scenery, and you swap halfway.
Costa Smeralda: cottages on the hill
We arrived late in the afternoon at Al Saraceno Residence, in Liscia di Vacca on the Costa Smeralda – the glamorous stretch of coastline whose development began in the 1960s under the Aga Khan and the Costa Smeralda Consortium. It remains one of the Mediterranean’s best-known luxury destinations.
The resort itself was a scatter of separate cottages across a landscaped hillside, around a ten-minute walk from the beach.
Costa Smeralda is really a string of small coastal settlements rather than one town, and finding our way to the door took a phone call to reception and some careful last-kilometre directions. A member of staff eventually came out to meet us on the road.
Once inside, though, the two-bedroom apartment more than made up for it: a proper kitchen, a wide terrace and enough space to actually unpack rather than live out of a suitcase for four days. A picture really does the place more justice than words at this point – see below.
A day at sea in the La Maddalena Archipelago
If there’s one thing to build a Sardinia itinerary around, it’s a day on the water, and this was ours.
Early one morning we drove to the village of Baja Sardinia, where a sailing boat – ours was skippered by Valentina – was waiting to take us out for the day.
We spent it threading through the La Maddalena Archipelago National Park, a scatter of granite islands and islets between Sardinia and Corsica. The national park was established in 1994 and covers more than 60 islands and islets. The seven main islands are La Maddalena, Caprera, Spargi, Santo Stefano, Santa Maria, Budelli and Razzoli.
Caprera is worth knowing about beyond its beaches, too. It was home to Giuseppe Garibaldi, one of the leading figures in Italian unification, who spent his final years there and is buried on the island.
We didn’t manage all seven in a day – nobody does – but we swam off more than one, ate an excellent lunch on deck, and worked through a slow procession of chilled white wine, Italian dessert and coffee as the light changed over the water.
Some days are better shown than told, and this was one of them – see our photos from the trip below.
Inland to Dorgali, via an unplanned lunch stop
After a day of sailing that gave us everything we’d hoped for, we set off the next morning without much of a plan beyond heading south, towards Olbia and then on to Dorgali, a town on the island’s eastern side known for its beaches and dramatic rocky coastline.
About two-thirds of the way there, we pulled off the road at a sign for Agriturismo Iloghe, a rural farm stay offering coffee and a rest.
What began as a quick stop turned into an invitation. The owners offered to prepare a full Sardinian dinner for us that evening, built around a whole roast piglet – porceddu, one of the island’s signature dishes – if we came back that way.
We agreed, then carried on to Dorgali to fill the rest of the day first.
The route from Liscia di Vacca to Dorgali ran to around 130 kilometres, roughly half motorway and half local roads, through landscapes that kept changing character mile by mile. It’s something to bear in mind if you’re planning your own driving days around the island: distances on the map don’t always translate into quick journeys.
Cala Gonone and a beach reached only by boat
In Dorgali, we headed straight for the small harbour at Cala Gonone and hired a motorboat for the afternoon – the easiest way to see this stretch of coast, where sandy coves alternate with sheer rock walls that plunge straight into the sea.
We spent more than four hours out on the water, eventually finding a small beach tucked between the rocks that was only reachable from the sea.
Having a beach entirely to yourselves for an afternoon, with no road access and no crowds, is one of those things that sounds like a cliché until you’ve actually done it.
It wasn’t.
We’re not sure the beach even has a name – and we’re not sure that matters – but, checking the map afterwards, it seemed to sit roughly seven kilometres south of the marina where we picked up the boat, if you fancy hunting it out yourselves.
That evening, we kept our promise and returned to Agriturismo Iloghe for dinner. What was meant to be a quick meal turned into a proper feast lasting close to four hours, course after course of Sardinian specialities, before we headed back to the hotel close to midnight.
Agriturismo Iloghe is still operating today and describes itself as a family-run agriturismo with a restaurant serving traditional Sardinian food, so this is one place from our trip that readers can still find.
Heading home via the northern coast
On our last morning of a very short trip, we packed up and drove back to Alghero via Sardinia’s northern tip, a different and quieter stretch of coastline from the polished atmosphere of Costa Smeralda.
Our flight home routed back through Frankfurt Hahn airport, which meant an overnight stop near the airport before an early connection – not the most romantic finish to the trip, but a practical one worth knowing about if you’re booking similar flights.
Was four days enough?
No – and we knew that before we’d even landed.
Sardinia is the kind of island that rewards slow mornings and long lunches, and four days barely scratches the surface of the coastline alone, let alone the interior. But short trips have their own value: they force you to choose.
And what we chose – the boat trip, the accidental dinner, the beach with no road to it – is exactly what’s brought us back to thinking about Sardinia ever since.
One thing worth flagging is Sardinia’s reputation for being an expensive corner of Italy. We didn’t regret a single euro of it. Everything we spent bought exactly the sense of joy and freedom you’d want from a proper Mediterranean holiday, and as a couple, this remains one of our most memorable trips together.
Perhaps that’s the real lesson from our four days in Sardinia. You don’t need to see everything to come away feeling that you’ve experienced something special. For us, it was a boat called Valentina, a hidden beach, a four-hour Sardinian dinner and a few days of simply following the coast wherever it took us.
And that’s more than enough reason to go back.
Travel42 UK is a couples travel journal dedicated to immersive road trips, slow travel, and destination storytelling.
Explore More of Italy:
The long way round, as a couple
About the Author
The author, ainarsbl, is a Level 7 Google Local Guide, Master Reviewer and expert travel reviewer focused on scenic landscapes, UNESCO sites and meaningful couples travel experiences.