I’ve been Sardinia six times and covered most of island.

The only areas which have any amounts of traffic are the small cities of Cagliari and Alghero. There’s also a little more traffic around Porto Torres and the ferry terminal but other than that, as Whitehall has posted, the roads are usually deserted outside the months of July and August.

Generally, the driving for non locals must be some of the easiest in Europe and I’ve driven in 80% of European countries.

There is a very large however.

Like many Italians, Sardinians love the beach. After prolonged periods of poor weather, on the first good day, especially at the weekend, there can be a mass migration out of the city and to the beach. This can be a huge issue on the South coast. Twice we have been stuck in traffic unlike we have seen anywhere else in the world. Four hours to travel 15 miles, which is caused by the geography of the coastal road system.

Of the sites, there are many, many Nuraghi some which date from 2000BC. They are quite basic in their form and many are difficult to distinguish from the local morphology. The items we visited had no interpretative aids.

Nora has small areas of pre Roman but mainly Roman remains including a small amphitheatre and a large area of surviving mosaic floor. The museum was closed on the Sunday and I do remember the road down to the site being fairly rough.

On the West coast, Tharros is a huge rambling site on a number of hill sides. There isn’t much left standing big this is just indicative of the fact that buildings haven’t been artificially reconstructed as at other sites. The site exhibits habitation from Nuraghe times around 2000BC, through
Phoenician and Punic times then large areas of Roman buildings. From memory, I think the site was destroyed by Saracens prior to the first Crusade.

There’s amazing fish restaurant on the edge of the lagoon, just before you leave the plain heading from Cagliari to Nora.

The restaurant is Sa Cardiga and is th second building on the sea as you leave the lagoon on the highway. There is a long stretch of lagoon on the right as you leave Cagliari to the West and the sea is on the right.

We have encountered the beach rush before. The highway heading west past Pisa can have legendary traffic jams as all of Florence and Pisa head for the coast.

Sardinia is an uncomplicated stunningly beautiful island. It doesn’t have the food scene, quality of wine or architecture of Sicily but it is much less visited and dig deeper, you find some fascinating places like Ingatursu and into disused mining towns and the huge nearby dunes.

Most of the coastal environment is amongst the most impressive in Europe.