Domus Piras

Quiet in winter, Cardedu comes to life in the summer, during the festival “Insieme a Cardeduâ€�, with a vast array of interesting events, from music and dancing to theater and folklore, for the joy of both residents and tourists. Sailing along the wonderful coast it possible to admire some of the most beautiful bays of the Mediterranean: Cala Gonone, Cala Luna, Cala Goloritzè are nowadays very well-know destinations for tourism. As a matter of fact the whole Orosei gulf has been appointed by the EU as SIC (Site of Communitarian Importance), awards given to sites characterized by the presence of important species of flora and fauna. One of the most famous and popular site is the Grotta del Bue Marino (Sea cow\'s cave), once shelter for the seals, today in danger of extinction. The species of animals are numerous and include vultures, predatory birds, moufflons and wild boars, mostly in the internal area.

Cardedu is also a favourite seaside resort for windsurfers because of the strong sirocco winds. The East Coast of Sardinia: the canoeist’s ideal habitat, according to not just Cardedu Kayak but anyone who’s been lucky enough to visit and paddle here. Places visited all year round by those who love nature and its marvels, rather than creature comforts. The coastline lends itself to all open-air sporting and “wellness� activities. Among these, sea canoeing is the most sought-after. The canoeist’s privileged position and the absolute silence, interrupted only by the noise of the paddle strokes, help you to admire what the coastline offers. Rare landscapes, unpolluted marine environments, one marvel after another immersed in the crystalline waters whose colours range from emerald green to cobalt blue, with alongside the deep green of the Mediterranean shrubs (“macchia�) that grow right up to the water’s edge.

On the Ogliastra coast, in a natural park with a wealth of plateaux and plains, artificial lakes and torrents, forests and bush, beaches, buttes and outcrops lies Cardedu. Founded immediately after a landside partly destroyed Gairo in 1951, the village, which for some time was kept under Gairo̢۪s jurisdiction, became a municipality of his own in 1984. A sandy seabed with limpid waters and a coast where dazzling coves suddenly appear to break the long white stretches of sand and reefs, pebbles and red porphyry sketch a gorgeous landscape, variegated, rugged and uncontaminated.

Beaches and bays in all their beauty alternate with little caves, impressive rocks and granite shapes eroded over time by wind and sea. You paddle kilometers after kilometers, forgetting the time that passes, accompanied by a continuous show of colours and smells and, when you look up to the majestic high limestone cliffs falling vertically down to the sea, you can̢۪t help noticing the calm and undisturbed flight of the griffon vulture. At Cardedu Kayak we̢۪re certain that all this will delight the expert and not-so-expert canoeist.

February to November.

The question is how to get to Sardinia? Based on how much time you have available, you can either fly in or arrive to Sardinia by ferry. Catching a flight to Sardinia is easy in the summer. With the very modern Costa Smeralda airport, placed in the middle of Olbia, on the North-east coast of Sardina, it is so stress-free to hire a car, hop on a train or a coach or simply hire a taxi to bring you to your chosen destination. The Sardinia luxury villas on the North east coast are all in close proximity to Olbia. Easyjet connects Olbia to Berlin, Milan Malpensa, London Gatwick, Lyon, Paris Orly, Basel and additionally Geneva and the budget friendly airline company Jet2.com takes you to Olbia in Sardinia from Leeds and Edinburgh each and every Saturday during the summer. Olbia is connected by flight with all international locations in Western Europe. Simply Google Costa Smeralda airport to find your flight. Provided you have the time - there is no better way to arrive to Sardina than on a ferry-trip across the Mediterranean Sea. The white beaches and the crystal clear turquoise waters encircling Sardinia is an invigorating welcome that switches on you holiday frame of mind from the very first second. You can get to Sardinia by ferry from main land Italy or from Barcelona in Spain, or even from Bonifacio in Corsica. From mainland Italy you can take a boat to Olbia in Sardinia from Civitavecchia, Genoa, Livorno, Napoli and Piombino. You can also arrive to Sardinia from Palermo and Trapani in Sicily - but these particular ferries travel into Cagliari on the South tip of the island. The ferryboat from Barcelona in Spain arrives into Porto Torres on the North-west side of Sardinia. This ferry crossing takes a little more than twelve hours. It departs from Barcelona in the evening and arrives in Sardinia between 10 and 11 the next morning.

There are three airports servicing Sardinia. Olbia in the North East for Porto Cervo and the Emerald coast. Alghero in the North West and Cagliari in the South. To find out about flights from the UK use the Who Flies search facility at the bottom of this page. Ferries operate between mainland Italy ( Naples, Genoa and Civitavecchia near Rome) and Sardinia, with main ports at Cagliari (S), Olbia (NE), Arbatrax (E) and Porto Torres (near Sassari in the NW). There is also a ferry from Marseille. Buses and trains service the main towns and some of the more popular tourist locations. An excellent website offering information on all routes and timetable for buses and trains thoughout Sardinia, is the Sardinia Airport Guide. Its website can be found on our Links page together with other sources of information. Car hire is really essential for those visitors wishing to explore beyond their hotel or resort. The main car hire companies operate there and the roads are very good and relatively quiet outside the main towns. The island is approx 260 km (162 miles) long and 120km (75 miles wide) and therefore most locations can be reached within reasonable driving time.

Sardinia has a very low criminal rate even kidnapping, which targeted wealthy individuals until the mid 1980s, has completely disappeared. Some areas of Sardinia have a longstanding reputation of family feuds apart from the fact that foreigners were almost never involved in such disputes, these belong now mostly to the past. Beware that some urban areas are unsafe. Be wary of game hunters during the September-February period check with locals, hotel employees, & the website of the Sardinian Region for legal hunting dates. Do not hike in the wilderness during these days! There are protected areas but even these are regularly raided by poachers, especially during the night. From April/May to September, fires plague Sardinia as the rest of the Mediterranean area some are spontaneous wildfires, but most are criminal. Observe the usual precautions. Sardinia is generally forbidden to start domestic fires in forests. Check with local authorities Sardinia is an autonomous region & Italian laws might be superseded by local provisions. Sardinia, with its quintessential Mediterranean beauty, is mainly loved for swimming, boating, windsurfing, hiking, climbing, and camping, with coastal areas tending to become over touristed especially in the warmest month, August. The inner life of the island away from the tourist spots takes longer to appreciate and requires you to peel away the layers of apparent Italianization.

Sardinia is one of five locations identified by the editors of InternationalLiving.com in a recent article on the healthiest places on earth to live. Sardinia, an island of 1.3 million people off Italy’s Mediterranean coast, is a Blue Zone. Blue Zones are areas in the world that have been determined by scientists as places where the people live the longest. Sardinia has some of the oldest people on earth, and Sardinian food may be the reason for their health and longevity. The Mediterranean Diet is no doubt good for you, and Sardinians actually live the Mediterranean lifestyle, too. This could be the key to their incredible health and longevity. Sardinian wine, cheese, and bread have something extra going for them. Sardinians produce a number of wines, but a local variety called Cannonau, a dark red wine, contains the world’s highest levels of antioxidants. Experts have also found that, while the Sardinian diet isn’t heavy on fish, which is the usual dietary source of essential Omega-3 fatty acids, Sardinians get heaps of this dietary boon from a local cheese called pecorino sardo, made from the milk of grass-feed sheep. Sardinians also commonly eat simply, homemade breads that contain vitamins and lactic acids that fight harmful bacterial in the digestive tract. Experts suspect that these three pillars of the Sardinian dietâ€Â¦dark red wine, fresh country cheese, and homemade breadâ€Â¦combined with other lifestyle and dietary factors, could be the keys to living a longer, healthier life no matter where you live. “For 30 years we’ve been providing information on places where people can live better for less,â€� says Jackie Flynn, publisher of InternationalLiving.com. “There are places on earth where people live simple, healthy lives without the financial and social worries that weigh so heavily on people in modern, industrialized countries. We asked our editors and contributors around the world to come up with their top five, and Sardinia made the cut, as did New Zealand, Panama, Costa Rica, and Ecuador.

Italian.