Sardinia splashed onto the international travel scene in the 1960s as a jet-set haven, fueled by the Aga Khan’s development of a once barren strip of coastline that became known as the Costa Smeralda (Emerald Coast). It drew the big celebrities of the day, like Gianni Agnelli, Princess Grace, and Greta Garbo, and the dolce-vita glitterati who followed in their wake.
When I lived in pre-internet Milan, Sardinia was such a sought-after holiday spot that booking the right flights from Linate (the city’s smaller airport) to Olbia for long summer weekends and August Ferragosto was a prime obsession among the city’s fashionables as soon as the temperatures began to rise. While there were ferries from various Italian ports, and the sea journey could be mesmerizing, it was also long (at least five hours) from a mainland harbor like Piombino.
