Sunny Sojourns On Two Mediterranean Isles : Sticking to the back roads, two intrepid travelers go in search of untrammeled beaches, mouthwatering local food, places of wild beauty. They find it in. . . : Sardinia

Peering over the cliff, we saw that the sea far below looked like some sort of fantastic Oriental carpet. There under the calm waters, seaweed, rocks and sand had changed the dominating azure to shades of green, brown and red, creating patterns of perfect pleasure. The sun bore down hard on our shoulders, and the air carried the clear perfumes of wild bay, myrtle, rosemary and thyme that had been released by the heat. Now, coming up a ridge, we heard bells tinkling, and then, looking over the brow of the hill through the yellow-flowering broom, we saw a valley filled with white goats, and were relieved to have some company.

We’d been feeling small on this landscape of low, brush-covered mountains, white beaches wedged into deep coves and spreading blue sea. We’d even been feeling a little lonely, but then this can happen along the nearly empty Costa di Sud, or almost anywhere else in southern Sardinia, since this is one of the least-trammeled, least-visited parts of the European Mediterranean.

This does not mean that you’ll be uncomfortable--there are several splendid resorts--or bored: The Bronze Age nuraghi, curious conical stone houses; the sunken Roman city of Pula and the sights of the capital of Cagliari all fascinate and provoke. But it does mean that you won’t have any of the jazzy trappings to be found on the more famous Costa Smeralda in northern Sardinia and elsewhere in the Mediterranean.

The second-largest island in the Mediterranean after Sicily, Sardinia lies 112 miles off the coast of Italy and historically has been one of the most frequently traded pawns in all of Europe. The Sardes, the original people of the island, have successively been invaded by the Phoenicians, the Romans, the Ostrogoths, the Genoese and Pisans, and the Spanish, and the island became a part of the Italian republic in 1871. It remained a relatively quiet backwater until malaria was eradicated through a program launched by a Rockefeller Foundation grant. This cleared the way for the most recent wave of invaders: tourists. It was in the early ‘60s that the Aga Khan recognized the excellent resort possibilities of the wild and dramatic northern coast of the island. The area was dubbed the Costa Smeralda, and within 10 years it had acquired a deserved reputation as a pricey playground for wealthy cosmopolitans from all over the world, but especially for the newly rich industrial gentry of Northern Italy.

Having visited the northern coast, which is quite beautiful but for my taste too stridently glamorous--and also very expensive--I had been curious about the rest of the island ever since I’d read D.H. Lawrence’s rhapsodic “Sea and Sardinia.” His deep appreciation of the island, coupled with the fact that I’ve lived in Europe long enough to have succumbed to the fantasy of finding a Mediterranean setting that isn’t depressingly overdeveloped and overcrowded, made me hopeful that the almost completely unhyped southern coast of Sardinia might be the place where I would finally find an empty white beach with sparkling turquoise water. Michelle, a Parisian friend who teaches Italian, shared the same vision and was also interested in experiencing the Sardinian dialect, and so after a lot of reading we decided we’d fly to Cagliari, spend a few days there, and then make an expedition heading west along the coast through Pula to the islands of Sant’ Antioco and San Pietro a few miles off the southwestern coast. We spent nine days in southern Sardinia and found exactly what we were looking for.

In the south, outside of several luxury resort compounds, the beaches are wild, not serviced by concessions that get $5 for a beach-chair rental, and evening entertainment tends to strolls in the woods or on the beach, maybe a visit to a cafe or a card game, perhaps the chance to settle in on a breezy balcony with the book you brought along. Quite simply, the formula here is deep relaxation rather than antic stimulation.

A 45-minute ferry ride from Porto Vesme at Sardinia’s southern tip, we arrived on San Pietro on June 28, the day before the island’s annual and most important saint’s day, the feast of San Pietro (St. Peter). Hungry, we parked our rented Fiat and feasted, in the piazza just across from the ferry landing at Carloforte, on hot pizzas strewn with big salty capers. Then we went on to the Hotel Hieracon, a very simple and very charming place that has the only acceptable rooms here. Having noticed this building from the boat, it was a pleasant surprise to discover it to be our hotel. Its elegant, twin-peaked, pale-blue Liberty (as the Italians refer to Art Nouveau) facade was the handsomest on the harbor. A long marble stairway leads upstairs to the reception desk, next to which is a bar that gives out onto a wonderful little garden that’s dominated by four huge palm trees--the perfect place to snooze and read after a day at the beach. The rooms here are simple--mostly all have twin beds--but clean, and several on the first floor have their original furniture--big, hand-carved Art Nouveau wardrobes and cast-iron lamps in fanciful floral shapes.

Delighted by wandering the town’s narrow, shady streets, we then set out to see the beaches on the south coast, and after passing by neat farms where wheat and fruit trees grow in small stone-walled fields, we swam in the warm transparent waters off of several little beaches. Later, and after an extremely good dinner on the open-air terrace at Da Nicolo on the waterfront--spaghetti with tiny clams and cold lobster with a salad of tomatoes and onions--we had an icy mirto , a local liquor made from wild myrtle berries, in the garden at the Hieracon and, expressing our mutual indifference to the continued existence of the rest of the world, realized we’d fallen under the island’s spell.

The next day, the air bristled with anticipation as seemingly everyone in town prepared in one way or another for the island’s feast day. We left the mounting excitement behind after lunch and drove to Capo Sandalo, the westernmost point on the island, where we watched the almost frightening thunder of massive waves exploding on the rocks. By four o’clock in the afternoon, the heat had driven us to seek shade, and the hotel siesta that’s common sense here even in June--which is, with September, the best time to visit. Later we woke and, freshly dressed for the mass at 6:30, walked into town.

By later that evening, every restaurant on the waterfront was jammed, and having tried another place at noon, we booked again at Da Nicolo. This time we tried the couscous with white meats--veal and chicken--zucchini and raisins, a curious but tasty dish that refers to the former North African home of the islanders; long, solid, heavy tubes of macaroni in an excellent pesto sauce, and swordfish deliciously grilled over a fire of dried herbs and served with preserved lemons, all washed down with the dry, sherry-like local wine--and watched the show. Timed with almost military precision, groups of teen-age boys and girls paraded the length of the lungomare , the seafront walk, and then dawdled, or accelerated, depending on how interested they were in the other just-viewed strollers.

The revelers continued all night, but the next morning when we caught the ferry back to the mainland, the streets were spotless, and it was with deep regret that we watched Carloforte, bright and innocent-looking in the morning light, shrink at the end of the ferry’s wake.

Landing, and feeling as though we had taken a trip within our trip, we headed from Porto Vesme southeast for Carbonia, perversely curious to take a look at the town that Mussolini built in 1938 to serve as the administrative center for the coal mines he’d developed in thearea. The piazza and campanile are wonderful examples of the gigantically proportioned Art Moderne architecture that the Fascists ordained for Italy. Built of reddish local stone and devoid of ornamentation, the cathedral and the city hall seem to have been created in preparation for a future generation of 10-foot-tall Italians.

From Carbonia, we got utterly lost trying to find Nur Seruci, the ruins of a large prehistoric settlement north of Carbonia on the Golfo di Gonnesa, on the way to Iglesias. You should do what we didn’t--ask directions from a gas station (it was Sunday for us) or at the excellent restaurant Tanit, just on the edge of Carbonia, if you lunch there. But one way or the other these very ruined ruins are worth seeing. Once you finally get there, you’ll likely be all alone. We saw the vestiges of an abandoned attempt to organize and dress them up. A farmer provided an explanation for the abandonment: “They ran out of money.” Just as well they did, too. Overgrown and empty, these nuraghi, conical stone houses, granaries and forts, dating perhaps to 2000 BC, offer you a chance to actually feel the past in a way you rarely do elsewhere. In the baking afternoon sun--nearly 100 degrees that day--the big stones were hot and covered with flowering brambles, inhabited only by salamanders. Surveying the sea in the distance from two strategic points, you slip away from the present toward something eternal, simple and pure.

From Nur Seruci back to Cagliari and the airport, you follow a modern expressway, and the only detour worth your time is the Grotto di San Giovanni, just east of the town of Domusnova, where you drive right through an enormous cave without leaving the road.

We found Cagliari, the island’s largest city and capital, a hard place to love at first sight. It’s a busy, work-a-day provincial town of about 250,000 with horrendous traffic and a maddening system of one-way streets. After I’d stowed the car in the garage of --the Regina Margherita, a standard-issue modern and adequately comfortable business hotel, and started wondering around, I began to find the city interesting.

What I most liked about Cagliari was the naturalness of the people and the old-fashioned, sepia-toned quality of the small downtown area. The ornate and grandiose architecture of the buildings here suggests a calmer and more optimistic time in the city’s clamorous history, and the Baroque churches and decorative ironwork everywhere made the city’s occupation by the Spanish in the 1700s quite real. In the course of my wandering one afternoon, I found scenes that I’ll never forget--in one small park, on a bench protected from the sun by a huge carob tree covered with purple flowers, I saw a group of neatly dressed old men with strong, chiseled faces. They’d all slipped off their suspenders and had rested their Panama hats on their knees, while they ate their ice cream cones in contented silence.

Later, a pair of roving shoe-shine boys went to work on my shoes while I sat in a cafe, but my dusty brogues were of no interest to them at all compared to a raven-haired young woman to my left who had rightly chosen a blue Spandex mini-dress and who was languidly sipping a frothy drink crowned with a cluster of tiny paper parasols.

Both days that we were in Cagliari we joined in the evening promenade along the Corso Garibaldi. From about 5:30 on, it’s thronged, as people indulge in the traditional Southern Italian custom of showing off and teasing each other en masse. After doing the length of the street, we’d backtrack, sit in a cafe and watch the crowd. Cagliari’s most interesting attraction is the small archeological museum in the hive-like warren of the old walled city up on the hill that overlooks the harbor. Once we’d finished with the museum, we went over and had a look at the city’s Roman amphitheater, just five minutes away. Afterward, follow the Via Canelles to the 13th-Century Pisan cathedral to see the magnificent pulpits by Gugliemo di Pisa and stroll the narrow, vibrant streets here, which are filled with life. A mesh sack of snails hung for sale in the doorway of a little market, where eggplants, tomatoes, mushrooms, artichokes, lemons and fat, amber-glowing grapes had been artfully arranged on a rickety wooden stand lined with fig leaves, and rounding a corner, into a piazza, we noticed, high up on a wall, a faded slogan signed “Mussolini.” Sun and rain had effaced his exhortation, but a few key words remained, which tell you what he was up to: “WORK HARDER. THE FUTURE WILL BE BETTER,” said the fragments.

The beach of Cagliari is called Poetto, and it’s a long, wide, clean white-sand littoral only five minutes from the city center, when traffic allows, and so the perfect place to slip away to for a bit of swimming and sunning during a day in town. Big bathhouses with restaurants line the road, and at night the many bars here make this the center of local night life. Young Cagligarians come and sit out at tables under the stars, chatting, drinking beer, listening to music.

My favorite restaurants in Cagliari were the Dal Corsaro, just two minutes from the hotel, and the Antica Hostaria. Dal Corsaro is the most highly rated restaurant on the whole island, and so takes itself rather seriously. The food is fancied up traditional Sardinian cooking, and if you steer clear of the more elaborate dishes you’ll eat well. The smoked swordfish with fresh tomato sauce is delicious, as are several of the house specialties: tender, fresh ravioli stuffed with goat cheese and sauteed onion, and the sea bass in saffron sauce. The Antica Hostaria is friendlier and more relaxed, a long narrow restaurant with its terra cotta painted walls filled with local paintings and water colors. Two fine dishes here were the farafelle (pasta butterflies) with lobster and tomato sauce and the tagliata , thin strips of grilled beef, with basil sauce.

The drive from Cagliari east along the coast to Villasimius, the southeasternmost town in Sardinia, is worth the initial case of nerves that may be brought on by the dramatic twists and turns of the seaside road. Once we’d escaped from the commercial penumbra of Cagliari, we came upon one spectacular view after another. The coast is dotted with old Saracen watchtowers, and the sunbaked mountains undulate from one perfect empty beach to another, culminating in the dramatic panorama of Capo Carbonara. Roasting in our non-air-conditioned car, we stopped at Solana and ran into the water; since it was a Monday, we had the whole huge beach to ourselves and wallowed like seals for a good hour before continuing. We also found an excellent hotel tucked away along the coast, the Grand Hotel Capo Boi, which has its own beach and pool as well as a fine restaurant where we lunched. On the way back to Cagliari after visiting the lighthouse on Capo Carbonara, we stopped for dinner at the restaurant Ottagano in Poetto, the beach-resort suburb of the capital. It’s a modern place built right on the beach, and they serve a superb assorted antipasti, including bottarga, the pressed tuna roe that is a local delicacy and, due to its gummy consistency and intense fishiness, generally an acquired taste.

Heading toward Pula and Santa Margherita the next day, we found the ride out of Cagliari bluntly ugly, but with a few consolations. First we crossed acres of salt flats and marshes, where the scene is sometimes brightened by great flocks of flamingos, and then came into a strip of Rube Goldberg-looking refineries. Don’t despair, however. As we discovered, you’re headed for one of the most interesting sights and some of the best scenery in the region, as well as its best hotel, the Is Morus.

They’re actually two different hotels under the same management at Santa Margherita. The Is Morus, which is a handsome old villa buried in an aromatic pine and eucalyptus forest on the edge of the sea, and the Is Molas, which abuts a fine 18-hole golf course praised by Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus, where the Italian Open has been held several times. Unless you’re an absolute golf fanatic, it’s better to stay at the Is Morus--as we did--since guests have golfing privileges at Is Molas, there’s a shuttle service to the course, and this hotel is the more atmospheric and attractively situated of the two. Golf or not, the Is Morus is a delightful place for a seaside holiday. A great intimacy is created through the fine service and simple, pretty decor. Rooms are whitewashed, tiled in white and furnished with forged wrought-iron headboards, rattan and blue floral chintz, and though air conditioned, the old wooden shudders have been retained. Almost every room in the main hotel--there are small but comfortable bungalows available, too--has a balcony giving out onto the well-landscaped grounds, and where the foliage isn’t too overgrown, a view of the sea. Bird song is the only noise here, since there are no televisions in the rooms.

You’ll quickly fall into the comfortable rhythms of this place, leisure and lounging broken only by meals, especially the delicious lunch buffet, which you take outside on a shaded terrace. As is typical of the cuisine here, you begin with an array of antipasti, which might include rice salad with tiny shrimps, lobster and tomato salad, sea urchins, peppers stuffed with pecorino and tomatoes, deep-fried zucchini flowers, and then go on to one of the two pastas, maybe spaghetti with the tiny, almost sweet cherry tomatoes that grow here, and then cold sea bass with mayonnaise, or a salad with a few cold shrimp. There’s also a sumptuous dessert buffet, which was a little too much for me in the hot weather, when the best conclusion is perhaps a perfectly ripened pear and a slice of gently biting pecorino. Afterward, you can have a coffee on the shaded loggia outside the bar, snooze, or return to the beach or pool. And informing all of these pleasures is the fact that since this is a relatively small hotel, I always felt like a guest instead of a room number. During your stay at Is Morus, you’ll have several expeditions to make, and aside from golf and tennis, the area has good facilities for equestrians; there are rustic horse races in the neighboring town of Chilivani in season, and horses may be rented at two stables in Pula--Beats Moller and Bau Stella.

In terms of archeological interest, the ruins at Nora, a spit surrounded by the transparent sea just on the other side of the town of Pula heading south, are one of the most interesting sites in Sardinia and a fine destination late in the afternoon. What’s especially interesting is that these ruins exist in three layers--Phoenician, Carthaginian and, most importantly, Roman. Bees swarmed on big flowering lavender bushes along the paths when we were there, and a welcome breeze rustled the dry, golden grass that sprouted between the paving stones in a still-level and solid Roman street.

One night while staying at the Is Morus, you should make an expedition to the restaurant that defines the Sardinian table. Su Cardiga e Su Schironi is 20 minutes away heading back to Cagliari, and unpropitiously located off the highway on the edge of an industrial zone. The place itself is sort of charmless, but the food is superb. To start, the table is covered with a lavish spread of appetizers,including fresh lobster, hot mussels and baby clams, big shrimp, fresh anchovies, smoked eel, cubes of tuna in a sauce of raisins and pignoli nuts, marinated baby shrimp, and delicious country bread with a butter and pecorino cheese spread. This is followed by a salad platter of celery, romaine, radishes and tomatoes to dip in rich, green olive oil, and then comes the fried course--lightly battered octopus, white bait, squid and shrimp, followed by a mixed seafood grill of red mullet, sardines, giant shrimp and swordfish. To mention dessert after this feed may sound absurd, but the tray of pastries that came with the coffee was excellent, especially the delicate, white frosted custard tarts, the almond brittle and balls of fresh marzipan wrapped in vividly colored twists of tissue paper.

Returning to the Is Morus the night we went to Su Cardiga e Su Schironi, the fresh air rushing through the windows was a relief, and another coffee and a mirto in the hotel loggia gave us the energy for a discussion of how remarkable everything we’d just eaten had been. The hotel was sleeping by the time we went upstairs, but one guest read on his balcony for a few minutes before becoming so distracted by his view of the sea that he later discovered the best time to swim on this coast is by darkness. Refreshing though it may be to plunge in at noon, at night, under a sky so brimming with stars that you can still see your bathrobe back on the beach, I found the contrast between the temperature of this ancient bath and the mountain air secretly delicious.

GUIDEBOOK

Sea and Sardinia

Getting there: From LAX, there are connections to Sardinia through several European cities (including Rome, Milan, Paris and Frankfurt) on carriers such as Alitalia, United, TWA and Lufthansa. Most connect with either Aero Transporti Italiani or Meridiana for the one-hour flight into Cagliari; only Lufthansa flies all the way through. Lowest current round-trip, restricted fares all the way to Cagliari are: Alitalia, $1,150; United, $1,166; TWA, $1,520; Lufthansa, $1,397.

Ferry boats leave Porto Vesme, Sardinia, for Carloforte on the island of San Pietro almost hourly; the crossing takes 40 minutes, and the fare for two passengers with a car is $50. Reservations are not required. Call the Saremar Lines; telephone locally in Porto Vesme, 509065, for information.

Where to stay: In Cagliari, stay at the Hotel Regina Margherita, Viale Regina Margherita 44; from U.S. telephones, 011-39-070- 670342, fax 011-39-070-668325; doubles from $130. In Carloforte, the Hotel Hieracon (Carloforte 09014, Isola di San Pietro, Sardegna; tel. 011-39-079-854028) is the best place to stay; it only has 17 rooms, so book well in advance; doubles from $80. On the coast, try either the Is Morus (Santa Margherita 09010; tel. 011- 39-070-921171, fax 011-39-070-921596), with doubles from $200, or the Grand Hotel Capo Boi (Villasimius 09049; tel. 011-39-070- 791515), with doubles, including demi-pension (breakfast and your choice of lunch or dinner), from $250. Demi-pension is required here and is a very good buy since the food is excellent.

Where to eat: In Cagliari, the best restaurants are Dal Corsaro (Viale Regina Margherita 28; local tel. 664318) and Antica Hostaria (Via Cavour 60; tel. 665870). In nearby Poetto, Cagliari’s beach resort, try Ottagano, tel. 372879. About eight miles out of the city, in Capoterra, don’t miss the excellent Su Cardiga e Su Schironi, tel. 71652. The best restaurant in San Pietro is Da Nicolo, on the waterfront in Carloforte, tel. 854048. Tanit Ristorante, tel. 673793, just outside of Carbonia, also is very good.

Recommended reading: “Sea and Sardinia” by D.H. Lawrence (Penguin, $9.95). “The Hachette Guide to Italy” (Pantheon Books, $16.95) has an excellent section on Sardinia.

For more information: Contact the Italian Government Tourist Board, 12400 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 550, Los Angeles 90025, (310) 820-0098.