The Mediterranean’s second-largest isle remains one of the shimmering jewels in Italy’s crown. Beset by rugged cliffs and alabaster-white beaches, it’s a land left untouched by the onslaught of globalisation; peppered with rustic villages, sloping vineyards and iconic nuraghe – rough-hewn megaliths left over from the mid-second millennium BC.

In towns like Alghero and Cagliari (the capital), jet setter yachts bob surreptitiously in the harbours, enfolded in a maze of medieval walls and ancient history museums. Along the island’s famous coast – a real draw card up the sleeve of Sardinia tour guides - villas hide beneath groves of cypress trees, overlooking the beaches of the Golfo di Orosei and the rugged inlets of Arzachena and the Smeralda Coast alike.

A veritable paradise for hikers, windsurfers, sailors, history lovers and culture vultures, the Sardinian isle is peppered with subterranean grottoes and Cambrian mountain ranges, encircled by true blue waves and pristine sands and home to everything from mouth-watering culurgione pasta to totemic rock formations from centuries gone by – this one won’t disappoint!