Every city in Sardinia | Italia Magnifica

Every city in Sardinia

From the capital to the smallest borghi.

CagliariThe capitalSardinia's capital climbs from its harbor to the walled Castello quarter, ringed by Pisan towers and crowned by the Bastione di Saint Remy. Below the limestone heights, flamingos wade the salt lagoons and city beaches stretch along the gulf.
AlgheroA walled seaport on the northwest coast where Catalan was carried over from medieval Aragon and is still spoken today. Within its honey-stone ramparts the city trades in red coral, while nearby a boat ride leads to the sea cave of Neptune's Grotto.
ArbataxA small port on the Ogliastra coast, known for the strange red porphyry rocks that rise straight from the sea beside it. It also marks one terminus of the Trenino Verde, the scenic narrow-gauge railway that winds inland through the mountains.
ArzachenaThe municipality that takes in much of the Costa Smeralda, set among cork oaks and weathered granite in the Gallura. Beyond its glossy resorts lie far older monuments, the prehistoric giants' tombs and stone circles of the Sardinian interior.
BaruminiA village in the island's interior that guards Sardinia's foremost ancient monument, the nuraghe of Su Nuraxi. This UNESCO-listed Bronze Age complex, a central tower ringed by a village of corbelled basalt huts, is the grandest of all the nuraghi.
BosaA river town on the west coast, its candy-colored houses rising in tiers below the medieval Malaspina castle. The Temo, Sardinia's only navigable river, runs through it, and the surrounding vineyards produce a prized amber Malvasia.
Cala GononeA seaside village reached by a hairpin road down the cliffs, the boat gateway to the Gulf of Orosei's hidden coves. From its little harbor launches set out for Cala Luna, a crescent of sand wedged between sheer limestone walls and shoreline caves.
CarloforteThe only town on the island of San Pietro, off the southwest coast, settled in the eighteenth century by Ligurian families. Its people still speak a Genoese dialect and keep an old tuna-fishing culture, celebrated each spring at the Girotonno.
CastelsardoA medieval town stacked on a headland of the northern coast, crowned by a Doria fortress that now holds a basket-weaving museum. The craft runs deep here, where local women still weave dwarf-palm fronds into baskets sold along the streets.
DorgaliA craft town in the mountains above the Gulf of Orosei, long known for its leather, filigree and carpet-weaving. From here the limestone coast opens to the beach of Cala Luna and the sea cave of Bue Marino, once a haunt of monk seals.
La MaddalenaThe main town of an archipelago of seven granite islands off the Gallura coast, now a national park. Its waters hold the famous pink sand of Budelli and Caprera, the island where Giuseppe Garibaldi spent his final years.
NuoroThe cultural capital of the Barbagia, perched in the mountainous heart of the island. This is the city of Grazia Deledda, the Nobel-winning novelist, and a stronghold of Sardinian language, costume and the inland shepherding tradition.
OlbiaThe busy gateway to the Costa Smeralda in northeastern Sardinia, with the island's main airport and ferry port. Most visitors pass straight through, yet its old center keeps a fine Romanesque basilica, San Simplicio, built of local granite.
OlienaA wine village at the foot of the Supramonte, the great limestone massif that dominates the Barbagia. Its vineyards are celebrated for Cannonau, Sardinia's robust signature red, while the karst springs of Su Gologone rise nearby.
OrgosoloA shepherd town high in the Barbagia, its houses covered with some two hundred murals. These open-air paintings, begun in the 1960s, turn the village walls into a chronicle of political struggle, island history and rural life.
OristanoA handsome provincial town on the central west coast, near the wetlands and the ruins of Tharros. Each Carnival it stages Sa Sartiglia, a masked equestrian joust in which costumed riders charge at a hanging star at full gallop.
Porto CervoThe glittering capital of the Costa Smeralda, conceived in the 1960s as a haven for the international jet set. Its sheltered marina fills each summer with superyachts, while the village blends Mediterranean style with discreet luxury boutiques.
PulaA town on the southern coast near the cape where the Phoenician-Roman city of Nora once stood, its seaside theatre and mosaic floors still half-claimed by the sea. The pale beaches of Chia, with their dunes and lagoons, lie just down the coast.
San TeodoroA lively resort on the northeastern coast, set between a string of sandy beaches and a lagoon where flamingos gather. Once a quiet fishing settlement, it now fills in summer with beachgoers and a youthful nightlife.
Santa Teresa GalluraA resort town on Sardinia's northern tip, looking across the Strait of Bonifacio to Corsica. Nearby Capo Testa is a moonscape of wind-sculpted granite, where the boulder-strewn Valle della Luna meets the white sand of Rena Bianca.
SassariSardinia's second city and a long-standing university town in the northwest, with a dignified old center of churches and palazzi. Its great folk festival, the Cavalcata Sarda, gathers costumed riders from across the island each spring.
StintinoA former tuna-fishing village at Sardinia's northwestern tip, famous for La Pelosa beach. Its shallow turquoise lagoon shelves so gently it seems to glow, watched over by an Aragonese tower with the island of Asinara on the horizon.
TharrosAn ancient Phoenician port on the windswept Sinis peninsula, later a Roman city. Twin Corinthian columns and a basalt main street stand among the ruins, watched over by the Spanish-era San Giovanni tower above the sea.
VillasimiusA resort at the southeastern corner of Sardinia, fringed by some of the island's clearest water. Around Capo Carbonara a protected marine reserve guards coves of white sand, granite headlands and seagrass meadows alive with fish.