Sardinia & Corsica Discovery

Your Italian adventure begins tonight. After meeting your Tour Director and fellow travelers over a welcome drink at the hotel, the group heads to a nearby restaurant for a leisurely dinner and the evening unfolds exactly as the best trips begin: good food, good company, and plenty of conversation. (D)

Rome doesn’t ease you in gently. This morning, a guided walking tour leads you through the Eternal City — past centuries-old squares and fountains, through neighborhoods where ancient history surfaces at every turn. The cobblestones, the espresso, the light: it all hits at once, and that’s exactly the point. 

The afternoon is yours to spend as you please. Join the optional excursion to the Capitoline Museums, perched above the Roman Forum and filled with centuries of art and archaeology — or trade grand halls for the quieter pleasures of the Galleria Borghese. Prefer to wander? Rome rewards that too, one piazza and one gelato at a time. (B)

This morning, you leave Rome behind and fly to Sardinia. The moment you land, the island makes itself known — salt air, jagged coastline, water so turquoise it barely looks real. Alghero will be your home for the next few nights. Check in, get your bearings, and ease into the slower pace this place naturally invites. (B,D)

Join your local guide for a morning walk through the historic center of Alghero — a city where centuries of foreign rule have left their mark on everything from the stone underfoot to the language still spoken in its streets. Phoenician traders were among its first inhabitants; later came the Catalans, whose influence never quite left. You’ll feel that layered history in the ramparts, the chapels, the quiet courtyards, and the cadence of daily life as the city stirs to life around you. Look closely at the doorways and lintels around you, and you’ll find the pointed arches and carved stonework of Catalan Gothic, a 14th-century inheritance still intact after all this time. 

Spend the evening in the kitchen with a local chef, learning the fundamentals of traditional Sardinian cooking. You’ll work with classic pastas — malloreddus, ravioli, macarrones — getting your hands into the dough and learning the techniques behind each shape. When the cooking is done, sit down together to eat what you’ve created! (B,D)

A free day to move through Alghero at whatever pace suits you — slow coffee in the Old Town, a wander along the ramparts, or simply sitting with the sea breeze and letting the morning unfold. For those who want to get out of the city, today’s optional excursion heads to Neptune’s Grotto and Capo Caccia: sea caves carved deep by centuries of tide, and clifftop viewpoints where the coastline opens up in both directions beneath you. (B)

Leaving Alghero behind, the route turns inland toward a part of Sardinia most visitors never reach — a mountainous interior where the island’s oldest traditions have held on largely undisturbed. The drive through Ogliastra is reason enough on its own: jagged limestone ridges, deep valleys, and ancient olive trees that have been here longer than anyone can say. 

In the Ogliastra region — one of the world’s recognized Blue Zones, where long life is less exception than habit — you’ll spend time with local shepherds whose days follow rhythms that haven’t changed much in generations: tending flocks, gathering with neighbors, eating what the land provides. Sit down with them and the meal speaks for itself — bread still warm from the oven, sharp pecorino, roasted meats, and the faint scent of wild herbs carried on the air.

From there, the road continues into Gallura — granite boulders worn smooth by the wind, cork groves, and the first glimpses of the north’s clear water. Once you’ve settled in, the evening ends with dinner at a local restaurant. (B,L,D)

From Palau’s harbor, you’ll board a boat and head out into the Maddalena Archipelago — a loose scatter of islands whose water shifts from deep blue to clear turquoise depending on where the light falls. The boat moves through quiet coves and along cliff faces shaped by wind and sea into forms that seem almost deliberate. Off Spargi and Santa Maria, you’ll drop anchor and swim in water clear enough to see straight to the bottom.

Between swims, lunch is served on deck. The views ask nothing of you except to look: hills running down to turquoise bays, stretches of empty beach, the particular quiet that comes from being well out to sea. When the day is done, it’s back to the harbor and on to the hotel. (B,L)

From Santa Teresa di Gallura, you’ll cross the Strait of Bonifacio — eight miles of open water between Sardinia and Corsica. As the southern coast comes into view, the sight stops you: a fortress city perched on white cliffs, its ramparts exactly where they’ve been for centuries.

Your first stop is Bonifacio — Corsica’s oldest city, built on chalk cliffs at the island’s southern tip, with a harbor full of fishing boats and a medieval quarter that climbs steeply above it. You’ll have free time to explore at your own pace: walk the quay, find a spot for lunch, and try the aubergines a la bonifacienne if you see them — stuffed eggplant, baked until soft, a local dish done well here for generations. A small tourist train runs up to the clifftop citadel, where the history of the place comes into focus: Genoese fortifications, a past that includes pirates and sieges, and views that explain why anyone would build a city here in the first place. Wander the cobblestone lanes, browse the shops, or just find a spot on the limestone bluff and watch the water below. On the way out, the view back at Bonifacio — the whole city balanced on the cliff edge above the sea — is worth one last stop.

We then continue to our hotel and check-in before dinner. (B,D)

A full free day in Southern Corsica, with no set agenda. Spend it at the hotel, or make your way inland to Sartene — a granite village of narrow streets and old plazas that feels largely unchanged from another era. For those who want to get further off the beaten path, today’s optional excursion visits a working organic cattle farm set in the Corsican maquis, the dense, fragrant scrubland that covers much of the island’s interior. You’ll learn about traditional farming practices and sit down to a lunch of local Corsican specialties. (B)

The route north follows Corsica’s mountainous spine toward Ajaccio, with a stop along the way at Filitosa — a UNESCO-listed site where the island’s history reaches back more than 8,000 years. A local guide will walk you through it. The granite statues here are the thing to see: figures carved into rough human form, their features worn but still legible after thousands of years of sun and wind, standing among the circular stone foundations of a prehistoric settlement. Your guide will put it all in context — Corsica and neighboring Sardinia together hold some of Europe’s most significant Bronze Age sites, and Filitosa is among the most striking of them.

Later, arrive in Ajaccio. The capital hugs the harbor in a curve of pastel buildings, with cafe terraces spilling out beside the water. Free time here to explore on your own — walk the waterfront, browse the markets for coral jewelry or chestnut flour pastries, and wander the streets where Napoleon spent his earliest years. (B)

The morning begins with a guided walk through Ajaccio, the sun-warmed capital where Napoleon was born and spent his early years. Inside the Cathedral Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption, a marble font marks the spot of his baptism — a quiet, dim interior of worn stone and light coming through small colored windows. From there, the route continues to Place d’Austerlitz, where a large statue of Napoleon looks out over the city, and your guide will talk through how this square became the focal point for the island’s memory of its most famous son. End at Place Foch — palms, outdoor cafes, the easy bustle of a Mediterranean morning — before stepping into Maison Bonaparte, the family townhouse now kept as a museum, where creaking floors and old portraits fill in the story of Napoleon’s childhood and the Bonaparte family’s hold on the island.

This evening you’ll attend a performance of Corsican polyphonic singing — a tradition that began in village squares and open fields, passed down through generations, and still carries something genuinely affecting in the way the voices lock together. (B,D)

A free day in Ajaccio, with an optional excursion on offer for those who want to head into the interior. Haute-Corse delivers a different side of the island entirely — mountain villages, forest trails, and a slower, wilder pace than the coast. Those staying in the city might find their way to the Musée Fesch, where one of France’s most significant collections of Italian Renaissance art outside the Louvre fills rooms of crimson walls and gilded frames. Works by Botticelli and Titian hang alongside a Napoleonic salon where Bonaparte family relics give the whole place a more personal dimension. (B)

A flight from Corsica brings you to Nice and back to the French mainland. After settling in, the afternoon is yours — rest, or take a walk along the Promenade des Anglais where the Mediterranean runs alongside you in both directions. In the evening, the group comes together one last time for a farewell dinner. (B,D)

This morning, the adventure comes to an end. Transfer to the airport for your flight home. Ciao! Au Revoir! (B)