The Greek name means "happy", and geography proved it right: Olbia is the gateway to Gallura, its airport and port pouring the world each summer toward the Costa Smeralda, invented by the Aga Khan in the 1960s twenty minutes away. But the city long ago stopped being mere transit.
The Romanesque basilica of San Simplicio, a lively main corso and an archaeological museum with a Roman wreck tell twenty-five centuries of history; the gulf closed by Tavolara island — a mountain rising from the sea — provides one of the Mediterranean's mightiest backdrops. Seafood and vermentino wine do the rest.
Near Olbia
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
