Sardinia
Built by the Aga Khan, Sardinia’s Costa Smeralda has become the favored playground of today’s little-red-Maserati and private-jet crowd.
by Mike Guy
As dusk falls at the Hotel Romazzino (39-0789-977-111; hotelromazzino.com), on Sardinia’s exquisite Costa Smeralda, we sip fizzy Bellinis on an airy outdoor patio. A stack of crispy, unleavened pane carasau drizzled in olive oil and crusted with salt and rosemary sits on the table. At 7:30, music from a piano ripples from the Ginepro Bar. Eventually, the sun sets. Although it’s been a long day of yacht racing and Dionysian feasting, yet another meal is about to start.
In Costa Smeralda, everything you see is the creation of the Aga Khan, the Pakistani sultan who flew over and “discovered” the region in the late 1950s. Drawn by the sparkling emerald waters (Costa Smeralda means “Emerald Coast”) and uncultivated coastline, Khan purchased the wild, unpopulated 35-mile tract of beaches and cliffs for less than $100,000.
Over the next decade, he planned and developed every spotless street, secluded villa and splashing grotto found here today, from the spacious airport tarmac in Olbia westward to the high-end shops in the courtyards of Porto Cervo. It’s a princely land, and home to the sports of kings — polo, yachting, partaking of exquisite meals and pampering beautiful women.
A quick hop from anywhere in Europe and a relatively accessible, exclusive destination from the United States, it’s also an uncomplicated place to find.
The airport in Olbia is large enough to host 45 planes, and is busy from April through September. According to Bart Spoorenberg, the dapper Dutch former manager of the Romazzino, up to 40 percent of the clientele fly into the airport on private jets. During the July and August high season, Olbia annually vies for the most heavily trafficked general-aviation airport in Europe.
To begin living the life of a sultan, I slip into the sporty new Smart Car of a tawny-skinned hotel publicist named Maddalena and head off to the polo grounds near Porto Cervo. A perfect verdant plain the size of four soccer fields, the grounds are ringed by dramatic, dry foothills dappled in the early autumn sun. White spectator tents line the field, and I see Spoorenberg perfectly attired in crisp seersucker and a tie of Romazzino blue.
The tournament is part of an Italian polo series that starts in Rome and ends in Sardinia. The compact, muscular polo ponies, 140 in all, are ferried every year to the Mediterranean from Argentina, where they’re bred. The riders are among the best polo players in the world, and once the game begins, you can understand what a distinction that is: Polo is fast and surprisingly brutal: as bare-knuckled as football, but much faster.
Of course, few spectators are actually watching the action. Spoorenberg joins the equally well-attired Federico Versari, manager of the Romazzino’s sister, Hotel Pitrizza (39-0789-930-111; hotelpitrizza.com), who is surrounded by his own team of slender fillies in bare-shouldered sundresses and oversized Gucci sunglasses.
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They — and everyone else — are here to be seen. There are Continental society figures, entertainers, tanned barons of business and fashion models holding tiny dogs, all representing a full deck of European nationalities. There are even a few slightly confused, though happily ginned-up, Americans. A contented, sun-kissed buzz carries through the tents along with the clink of champagne flutes.
The match ends near sunset, and the turbines of a nearby helicopter roar to life. Some friends and I join the gaggle filing out to waiting craft and cars, which carry us back to our resorts and villas to briefly freshen up for the dinner awaiting us at the Hotel Cala Di Volpe (39-0789-976-111; hotelcaladivolpe.com).
== “L’appetito vien mangiando” == is an old Italian saying, meaning, roughly, “The act of eating makes you hungry.” It’s an apt expression in Costa Smeralda, where meals are monstrous and unrelenting. One begins, it seems, where the previous one ends.
Hotel Cala Di Volpe’s interior mixes the rough-hewn walls, gnarled-wood balustrades and rustic wide-plank floors of an exquisite hunting lodge with Gaudí-esque columns and trompe l’oeil. Rattan chairs crowd the spacious patio, which is lit in soothing amber.
The dinner is a free-for-all, with local specialties and classic Italian mainstays: crispy towers of pane carasau; succulent buffalo mozzarella caprese; zesty squares of soy-drenched tuna; sea bass marinated in vinegar; la fregola, a soupy pasta with thin slices of asparagus and peppers. A rack of lamb, served rare, arrives with roasted potatoes, fresh mint sauce and zucchini crostini, all crowned with a stuffed tomato. A relentless march of food — princely, even — ends with a brisk, ephemeral sorbet made with native lemons.
The next morning we drive slowly along the winding road toward the yacht basin. At one turn, we get a view through the haze of the mesa-like island of Tavolara, its sheer cliffs dropping straight into the sea. In the bay, sailboats ride a steady breeze. At the recently renovated Yacht Club Costa Smeralda (39-0789-902-200; yccs.it), dozens of classic yachts crawl with crews scuffling through final preparations for that day’s Rolex Veteran’s Boat Rally.
The yacht club hosts us aboard one of its largest launches, and we slice out into the gusty bay to watch the yachts — massive racing machines that thread the course with impossible grace. Dozens of viewing boats such as ours ply the waters, and while the yachts are clearly the spectacle, we mostly chat and wave at other spectators. A deckhand passes out prosciutto sandwiches. We uncork wine and begin to eat anew.
That evening I check into the Hotel Pitrizza, a sumptuous, secluded group of discreet stone villas west of Porto Cervo and the crown jewel of the princely Emerald Coast. My villa comes with its own outdoor Jacuzzi. I’m told that soap star Susan Lucci — American royalty in her own right — occupies the neighboring villa. Sure enough, when I am out for my evening constitutional, we cross paths and she smiles as if we were friends.
After “participating” in several of Sardinia’s regal sports, I’m ready to indulge in the third, most sensuous, pursuit. I smile back at her. She’s older than I am, but has an ethereal glow about her, her features so fine they might be chipped from Lucite.
But our fantasy romance ends when her husband arrives. Just as well. After all, how much royalty can one man take?
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