We flew into Rome, rented a car, drove to Civitavecchia to board the overnight ferry to Olbia and drove directly to Alghero. We were, of course, exhausted so Alghero was a perfect spot for us. It has a smallish centre of the city and our hotel (called St. Helena, as I recall) was directly on the water. That's where we had the spectacular focaccia and we were hooked. We stayed two nights.

We then drove down the west coast of the island, stopping as we pleased ending up in Cagliari. The city is not charming but the food is good and the nightly passageio (sp?) is similar to what you would find in any coastal town in Italy. People meandering along, chatting and eating gelato.

Our next spot was Muravera, a very small place, basically a road with restaurants and pensiones on either side and houses nestled in the hills. The beach was beautiful and we spent two days there. We did a very quick drive up the east coast to reboard the ferry to the mainland (then dropped the car, took a train from Rome to Bari and hopped on another ferry to Dubrovnik - but that's another story).

Sardinia is littered with nuraghi, stone structures that are over 3500 years old. Here's a site. http://tinyurl.com/2h5dx

Here's a birds-eye view map of the island. http://tinyurl.com/3g2hv

I didn't shop so can't provide any info here.

Bottom line: there aren't spectacular examples of architecture or great museums but it's a place where Italians vacation so we were curious. Would we go back? Yes, definitely. We enjoyed the rugged geography of the island and ate very, very good food.

Lucy, Toronto