Name:seanlev

Disadvantages: Same shopping prices as UK, No air con

We decided on a Sardinian holiday after visiting Corsica last year. The islands are very similar with the obvious exception of one being French and the other being Italian. 

On the whole, the roads in Sardinia are better than Corsica and it is certainly cheaper to get to (£120 round trip through RyanAir flying from Stansted to Alghero). 

We stayed in Porto San Paolo which is on the north east coast just below Olbia. This time we decided to everything ourselves so the flights were booked through the RyanAir web site, we booked a car through the easyautos website (www.easyautos.co.uk) and the apartment through the web also. This worked out a hell of a lot cheaper than going through any of the normal channels – I reckon we saved over £300 and we had no problems at all (maybe we were lucky). 

The apartment we rented was just up the hill from Porto San Paulo – certainly within walking distance although it is a bit of a pull back up the hill on hot nights. The apartment was very nice with a fridge, hob, etc. although no oven or grill, or air conditioning for that matter. 

Flavio, the owner/manager who you deal with throughout the booking process is extremely helpful, speaks very good English and provides a very comprehensive set of instructions. The instructions cover all the local beaches – definitely needed as it is not obvious from the main road how to get to the beaches and you would simply not find them without help – plus shops, restaurants, excursions and so on. Quite simply these instructions were invaluable and contributed greatly to our holiday enjoyment. 

My only gripe with the apartments was that you really had to drive to all the beaches – Porto San Paolo acts as an excellent base, but the beach is shingle compared to the brilliant white sands of some of the nearby beaches. 

You can check out where we stayed at http://www.lavru.it/en/home.htm – the site is in English and Italian, and yes the beaches are shown we 
re local and we visited all of them. We went in June and it was really hot (I think hotter than normal) and, although the main public beaches were busy they weren’t too crowded – some of the smaller beaches in Flavio’s instructions had small coves whish you could have to yourselves. Our apartment had a fantastic view out over the sea to the island of Tavolara. 

We went on excursions north to the Costa Smerelda – very nice but watch the prices in the cafe’s – and south down to Cala Gonone – which is well worth a visit to see the sea caves and Cala Luna.