What fun sometimes merely to fly and flop. To be just 20 minutes from a small airport like Olbia. To see out over a wide expanse and lie under the great globe of unblemished sky that’s simply serene.
To witness the mesmerically azure blue sea along miles upon miles of untrammelled coastline. This ‘endless island’ is for tourists all about the stunning blue water and the granite cliffs and its caves most numerous per square mile on earth. For it’s in the very heart of the Mediterranean, the 2nd largest island after Sicily.
Her population is outnumbered by sheep 3:1. It brought us the words sardine (where once they were plentiful) and sardonic (meaning of Sardinia). The four moors on the flag of Sardinia (as opposed to just one on Corsica’s) represent either the four Moorish princes defeated in battle or four Sardinian victories.
Indeed whilst invaded and exploited the island never was conquered. For Sardinia is an exotic wild outpost, a frontier landscape isolated beyond its granite boulders. A bathing paradise of that unsung glory one finds amongst the quieter regions of the Mediterranean.
This Costa Smeralda, this ‘emerald coast’, was introduced by Aga Khan to become the 1960s playground of the famous and fashionable. But it’s different from Biarritz, Mustique, Acapulco or St. Tropez and, after July and August, it passes back into the hands of her inhabitants and nature lovers.
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