I just love these two articles showing two completely different sides to Sardinia so I thought I'd share them with you
WHEN Patrick Behr heard that Sardinia’s famously decadent Billionaire nightclub would be hosting its annual opening gala during the last weekend in June, he decided it would be the perfect occasion to discover the night life in the island’s chic northeast corner, better known as the Costa Smeralda, or Emerald Coast.
So Mr. Behr, a world traveler who lives in Frankfurt, booked a table and was soon shooting off to the Mediterranean resort with a friend in tow. Around him, Billionaire was living up to its bombastic name. Italian television stars and soccer gods strode over Oriental carpets to chat with European TV crews. The club’s white-haired owner, Flavio Briatore, reclined like a sultan amid bottles from the club’s Champagne list, which featured a methuselah (a mere six liters) of Cristal for 35,000 euros. Periodically Mr. Briatore, a 50-something Formula One mogul, arose to greet club visitors, who last year included Denzel Washington, Lenny Kravitz and Bruce Willis...
See http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/08/17/travel/17Next.html?pagewanted=1&sq=sardinia&st=cse&scp=3 for the full article
To know Sardinia intimately, residents say, you must visit the interior of the island. Only tourists cling to the coast, along with pirates and conquerors and other sailors of blemished repute. If you are in quest of the Sardinian spirit, you must go where the earth turns brown and dry, the cork oak raises its battered silhouette against the horizon, and the winds whistle across the hills. There is something mildly forbidding -- though infinitely compelling -- about the interior of Sardinia. Seasoned travelers, even seasoned Italian travelers, still mention the legendary banditi, for example. Although many Sardinians dismiss them as antique and absurd, others will warn you in a low voice that if you are very rich, or display a high profile, you might want to use a little prudenza in your demeanor and dress.
The most striking thing about the interior is its emptiness: well-paved, vacant roads; small, provincial museums with only a handful of visitors to disturb the dust; tiny towns whose slumber is heavy and unbroken until market day or on Sundays, when bells summon everyone to church...
See http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E7DA1130F935A15754C0A96E958260&scp=6&sq=sardinia&st=cse for the full article
Saturday, 24 January 2009
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