Olbia: gateway to the Costa Smeralda

Blocks of granite reused from Roman ruins compose the eleventh-century walls of the Basilica of St. Simplicio, the oldest monument of the city and venue in summer of a music festival among its Romanesque naves.

Just a few minutes' walk away, the pedestrian Umberto Course crosses the center among shops and cafés to the port.

Right on the water, on an artificial island connected by a walkway, the Archaeological Museum displays the remains of Punic and Roman ships sunk in the port and recovered only in recent times.

In the late afternoon it's worth moving north, where the beaches of Pittulongu offer a first taste of the turquoise waters that make the nearby Costa Smeralda famous.

The wrecks on display in the museum were discovered almost by chance during port expansion works in the 2000s, and rewrote parts of what was known about Roman trade in Sardinia.

Many visitors pass through Olbia only during check-in or embarkation time: those who stop even just a few hours discover a port city with a history longer than the resorts to the north.