Costa Smeralda, Sardinia

A coastline with a rulebook

Design control shaped the Costa Smeralda. The consortium wrote rules and enforced them: nothing tall, nothing that read as a hotel block, no billboards, cables buried, colours held to the range the landscape already used. Architects were pushed towards an invented vernacular of rounded corners, rough render, tiled roofs, timber and wrought iron — something that looked like an old Sardinian village and had never existed anywhere on the island.

Judged as authenticity that is a fraud. Judged as planning it is a considerable success: six decades on, the coast has no ribbon of towers and very little visual noise, and Porto Cervo still reads as a low huddle of pale buildings around a marina rather than a town — which is precisely what it is.

What the granite decides

Coastline here is granite worn into rounded shapes, with maquis scrub growing to the edge and water running from clear to a hard turquoise over pale sand. That sand is eroded granite, which is why it is so light, and part of why the sea takes the colour it does: no river mouths nearby, little in suspension, nothing much to cloud it.

Shape matters as much as colour. This is a coast of coves rather than a long beach, so the swimming is broken into dozens of separate pockets, some reached by a track and a walk, others easier by boat. Offshore to the north lies an archipelago of low granite islands protected as a national park.

When to come

June and September are the coast's months, and the gap between them and high summer is stark. July and August are expensive, crowded and booked out well ahead, with the marina at its most performative. Either shoulder gives you warm water, open restaurants and room to move.

Timing matters more than usual because the season is short. Much of this coast closes outside the summer months — hotels shuttered, restaurants dark, the marina emptied — so arriving in April or November means finding a beautiful and largely non-operational shoreline. Couples in particular should aim at the tail of September, when the sea is still holding the warmth of August and the crowd has gone home.

Whether it is expensive

Yes, and conspicuously so at the top. This coast was built for a market that does not ask, and the summer peak is priced for people arriving by boat.

Underneath that the picture is more forgiving than the reputation suggests. The premium attaches to a narrow band — the marina, a handful of headland properties, the clubs on the famous coves — and falls away quickly with distance. Staying slightly inland, or along the coast towards the ferry port, costs a fraction and puts you a short drive from the same water, and the beaches themselves are public, which is the leveller everyone forgets. Since the top of this market moves its rates hard between the shoulder months and the peak, comparing current stay and experience options across your exact dates is worth doing early.

What is worth paying for

A boat, without much argument. Coves that are busy from the land are empty from the water, and the archipelago offshore is unreachable any other way. A day with a skipper costs what it costs, and it is a day people remember.

Proximity is the other thing worth paying for. On a coast where everything good is a cove at the end of a track, being able to walk to one changes the shape of every day.

Where to stay

Splurge

A headland resort or villa with its own cove, a pool set above the water and a boat available on request. These sit inside the original planned estates and they suit travellers who want the coast delivered privately rather than negotiated daily.

Mid-range

A small hotel or apartment set back from the marina, within walking distance of a public beach and with a pool of its own. You lose the private cove and keep the coastline, which is public anyway. Well judged for couples who intend to spend their days on the water.

Good value

A guesthouse, agriturismo or apartment inland or further along the coast, with a car for the beaches. The drive costs you twenty minutes each way and saves a great deal, and the Gallura interior — cork oaks, granite outcrops, vineyards — turns out to be worth seeing on its own account.

The coast at a glance