Fabulous food and wine tours in Italy … Italy should be devoured! Piedmont with its mountains and Tuscany with its hills: fill your senses with tastes from award-winning vintners, wines that range from robust to comforting, old to young, and food that sings and melts in your mouth, all with medieval towns at your fingertips. Italy allows you to slow down, smell the grass, smell the food, smell the wine, see the land, touch history, and devour it all.
Sardinia … a fabulous location to visit.. Remains of literally thousands of these stone towers scatter throughout Sardinia, most in complete ruin, but this is the best preserved and most complete. It is also the closest major one to Cagliari, and the best interpreted, with 30-minute tours and English-speaking guides. If you can see only one, see this one, which UNESCO cited as one of the best restorations anywhere in the Mediterranean. Timber found in the walls of the central tower was carbon dated to 1,500 BC, and the outer towers were built in the 11th or 12th century BC. You can go inside the tower, climbing to its upper reaches for a close-up view of the stacked dome made of dry stones without mortar. Spiral stairways inside its 1.8-meter walls connect the three stories, and as you climb through the passageways, you can appreciate the finesse of the engineering and workmanship these prehistoric people achieved. After exploring the towers and the foundations of the ancient village surrounding it, be sure to stop in the Casa Zapata Museum, in the village, where – along with other fascinating exhibits – you can see another nuraghe that has been excavated under the building. Here you get a birds-eye view of the construction from a walkway above the walls.
In the South-West of Sardinia, among mounts and shrubs shaped by the wind, in the wildest and most isolated Sardinia, an imposing coastline develops for about 47 kilometers: this is the mighty Costa Verde. A succession of pristine beaches such as Piscinas – with the highest sand dunes in Europe – cliffs that burst deep into a green waters sea, so loved by the most daring surfers. You will be amazed by the fantastic sunsets along this coast, where your eyes get lost in a strong elation for the sky turning into pink. Marina di Arbus is not just about the sea: there is the declared archaeological mining site of Montevecchio and also Bugerru, Ingurtosu plus the one of Porto Flavia in Masua. You can’t miss the sea stacks of Pan di Zucchero and the defensive Tower of Torre dei Corsari. In the village of Arbus you’ll find the Knife Museum, which has the heaviest flick-knife in the world. Extra info on Luxury Travel in Italy.
There are more than a dozen giant’s tombs scattered all over the island of Sardinia. They are massive and ancient Nuragic structures surrounded by mystery. A particularly well-preserved example is known as Sa domu ‘e s’Orcu in dialect, which means ‘the ogre’s house’, and is located near Cagliari. These magnificent stalactite and stalagmite formations are named after the Roman god of the sea, Neptune. To visit this grotto you can either walk single file down a long set of steps that begin at the top of the cliff, or take a short boat ride from the port of Alghero.
Parco Nazionale Arcipelago Di La Maddalena is a national park in the North of Sardinia. During clear days, you can see the coastline of the French island Corsica from the most Northern island of La Maddalena, Isola Razzoli. This archipelago, of which most islands can only be reached by boat, offers an unspoiled nature, stunning views, friendly people, and nearly anything else you need to feel completely away from this world. The Louis Vuitton Trophy, one of the most prestigious sailing races in the world, visits La Maddalena with a good reason!