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Not only salt

If you suffer thalassophobia and for this reason shun sea destinations (a fortiori the islands, Sardinia included), but still not disdain idea of cooling off during hottest summer days, from Porto Rafael you can take a reinvigorating excursion along paths and creeks of sweet waters. Over ninety waterways cross Sardinia, among which Tirso, Flumendosa, Coghinas, Cedrino and Taloro rivers.

With their nearly one hundred smaller brothers, they wind through hinterland, from where existence of sea seems almost like an invention that turns out to be real only when you approach mouth. Thalassophobics can stop earlier and enjoy forests, caves, churches and millennial refuges remained intact over time, being carried away by water flowing in the most tumultuous or peaceful river beds, which tirelessly bathes fragments of identical but dissimilar cultures and traditions; close as the crow flies, yet pristine, intact, united by a contradictory kinship bond, suspicious and generous at the same time, Sardinian people's typical states of mind.

Less impetuous, but objectively safer for sea hypochondriacs, are the many natural thermal pools, in which relax and admire archaic landscapes, such as those of Bultei and Benetutti, wrapped in a spectacular natural setting; among best known and most popular Fordongianus baths, a Roman-era establishment among beautiful archaeological sites. On the way from Bultei to Fordongianus, you can reach Casteldoria, where water's vapor gave birth in the past to fascinating legends about witches and ghosts. In Dorgali also thermal baths of Su Anzu. Remaining on desalination, the only natural lake in Sardinia is Baratz, putative father of the thirty eight artificial reservoirs of the island, whose total volume amounts to 1.6 billion cubic meters of water.

Among these placid foster children, Liscia lake - located between the municipalities of Sant'Antonio di Gallura, Luras, Arzachena, Calangianus and Luogosanto - is the most convenient loophole for salt water detractors. Reachable and navigable from the many river's inlets, we suggest to escort the bravest blindfolded to canoes at Porto Pollo beach, few minutes by car from Porto Rafael. After first paddles, once regained eyesight, your breathing and mood will calm down, perhaps in front of a flamingo resting among reeds, or of a purple heron flying over the boat. For those who prefer less strong emotions, Sardinia is dotted with suggestive waterfalls, springs and streams that plunge among the rocks with breathtaking visions.

A crime not naming San Valentino Sadali waterfall, one of the most beautiful villages on the island, at the gates of Seulo Barbagia; Sa Stiddiosa waterfall in Seulo, a corner of paradise along Flumendosa river; Su Stampu 'e su Turrunu in Sadali, in the heart of Addolì forest, between Barbagia and Ogliastra; Capo Nieddu waterfall in Cuglieri, where Rio Salighes stream plunges forty meters into the sea; Is Corropus waterfall in Gergei... and many others.

But if it still costs you too much stress, Villa Aidan's splendid swimming pool in Porto Rafael is sixteen meters, and the only salt around is kept in the kitchen jar.

Feel safe enough?

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Porto Rafael Real Estate Blog

Porto Pollo: The Surfers' Paradise in Sardinia

October 6, 2024

Porto Pollo: The Surfers' Paradise in Sardinia

a small plant is growing out of the sand

Tik Tok, c’mon!

May 15, 2023

In 1960, when Rafael laid the first stone of his village, Italian television broadcasts one single channel, channel one precisely. In 1961 channels broadcasted become two, followed very shortly by Italian Swiss Television. Since 1971, the new black is receiving at home channels one, two, Switzerland and Koper, strictly in this order.

Porto Rafael Shire

By Danielle Sassoon • March 20, 2023

If after an intense day at the beach you feel nostalgic for the old farmhouse in central Italy where you used to spend summer, and you feel like sipping the excellent wine your grandfather used to get, never been able to drink elsewhere; if today you wish to sit once more under your figs, listening the farmer saying anecdotes about your family, even if always the same and repeated hundreds times; in short, if you would like to swap perfect sunset which stands now in front of Villa Aidan with a less performing sun, when it intertwines with trees and breaks behind the hills, releasing long and shady twilights; well, do not abandon the island. It is our duty to inform you that the farmhouse of your childhood is now surrounded by anonymous residential complexes delimiting city boundaries, which are now close and looming.

Porto Rafael, a rash decision

By Danielle Sassoon • February 17, 2023

Winter, as we know, makes us melancholy. Holidays are a distant memory, and even more distant seems the flight to some beach where forget cold. Among the ones more eager there is a person we’ll call The Type: woman, around 45 years old, living on the continent in an industrialized town. She is married or separated, has two children or none, works in a communication agency or volunteers. She would like to be now on a boat, but the only possible crossing in these gloomy hours is the one navigable on search engines. Her smartphone is waiting for a simple gesture of her fingers to sail anywhere, but today she doesn't feel like pulling up even the anchor of her virtual sea. Maybe is this thick and thin rain, or the night outside despite it's just 5pm. She feels a hundred years old. She types the word "old age" on the phone with the same ambiguous curiosity one may have for a scary movie. First link appears on the screen, and at the same time a stairlift advertisement starts, in which a happy old lady transports

a beach with rocks and trees and a blue sky

Sardinian spoken

By Danielle Sassoon • February 17, 2023

Infrequently, but it does happen, in Porto Rafael people complain about Sardinians, blamed for every single hitch. Owners and tenants when meeting occasionally at the market - one of the best in the area, with an excellent selection of products aimed at Italians and foreigns - by glances and half-words make an appointment at Harry's Bar outside, to talk freely far from the ears of the three market owners: Grazietta, Ilaria and Giulia. Once the shopping is over, while Ilaria has just finished advising an uncertain English lady on the best oil to buy, here come vacationers by groups of two or three, go ordering a cappuccino to Diego (over which there would also be a lot to say, but he is from Rome, and for the moment he will be spared).

One's head in the clouds

By Danielle Sassoon • January 3, 2023

If you too have been scolded all your life for having your "head in the clouds", and always been exhorted to remain firmly planted on ground and walk quickly towards objectives reachebles only with shoes on your feet, in Porto Rafael you can finally free yourself from ballasts, slowly lifting you up, while an unexpected panorama of life, shapes and colors opens up above and below you. A few inches from ground, when just started your timid ascent, like children disobeying their strict preceptors, you are likely to narrowly miss the head of a cormorant coming out of the sea, with a small fish in his beak, before he resumes his taut flight along water. Funny mix of terrestrial and aquatic nature, cormorant prefers sheltered seas, avoids deep waters even when close to the mainland and rarely moves away from shores. It spends a lot of time on land, perched on rocks, cliffs, sandbars, shipwrecks, poles or bare trees. So don't be offended if he just bless your journey with a long questioning look: he is bar

a group of people are toasting with wine glasses

Dining out in Porto Rafael

By Danielle Sassoon • February 27, 2020

Going out to dinner in Porto Rafael is a pleasant alternative to dinners at home, from where you hardly want to go out, but some addresses are really valid for deciding to close the kitchen or to give your private chef a free evening, always assuming he is not taking it personally.

Porto Rafael the other Coast

By Danielle Sassoon • February 26, 2020

Even today, for many, Costa Smeralda represents almost everything that is known about Sardinia: Porto Cervo and its coast continue to gather an uninterrupted consensus, which in the long run has made these places very similar to many other so-called elitist destinations, which bended to the globalization of luxury. If it were not for the different landscape details - a sea of rocks, wide sandy beaches, marble quarries, expanses of hills or mountains around - today it is almost impossible to recognize where you are spending a holiday: however far you go the sad surprise, even at the end of the world, is to feel precipitated in a big shopping center, or in the hall of a seven, eight, one hundred star hotel, but identical to a thousand others, with a string of boutiques, jewelereries and shops that could be found everywhere, that are found everywhere.