Cala Gonone and Beaches in the Gulf of Orosei

After our two nights in Cagliari we drove up to Cala Gonone through the mountains/hills on very steep, narrow, sharp-turned roads. Cala Gonone is a small town on the east coast of Sardinia. It sits in the Gulf of Orosei, which contains many small beaches guarded by steep cliffs. Below is a picture taken from our hotel room balcony of Cala Gonone and the gulf extending to the south. There are maybe a dozen beaches lining this gulf, all rather small and hidden amongst the cliffs. The beaches are not large at all ... just small plots of sand or stones. We'd say the longest beach, Cala Luna, was less than a quarter mile long. But the water at these beaches was the clearest, cleanest water we'd ever seen. No seaweed, no trash, no murkiness at all.

We spent 8 nights in Cala Gonone (at the top of a huge hill and let me tell you we were happy not to have to walk back up that hill after dinner anymore when we left!) and went to as many of the beaches as we could. Some you can hike to (actually you could hike to all of them if you have the time and endurance). There is a special 7-day hiking trip you can take that goes by most of the beaches but it is a fairly technical hike with some rappelling down steep cliffs involved and a lot of rock scrambling on goat trails.

You can take big ferries to some of the beaches, you can kayak to all of them, you can hire your own boat for a day or two or hire a smaller boat with a driver or go on a 12-person tour, some you can drive to, and some you can only get to by foot or small boat and swimming as boats are not allowed to go near the beach itself. Lots of options!

Obviously Martin and I tried every form of transportation to see all of the beaches. We hiked to Cala Luna, drove to Cala Cartoe, and took boats to all the rest. If we had had one more day we would have rented kayaks as well. Below is a picture or two from each beach.

First up is Cala Luna. It is one of the few beaches that has sand instead of big white stones. It has large caves on it which are neat to poke around in and also some steep cliffs that people climb:

Here I am floating with my noodle in front of the caves along Cala Luna:

Here are more of the caves along Cala Luna:

There are caves like the ones below along a lot of the coast. There are some places where you can go inside them and wander around a bit on platforms but we didn't feel the need to do that on this trip.

We also spent a lot of time on Cala Cartoe because it was only a 10-minute drive from our hotel and it was a nice big sandy beach that was not very crowded. It was also really shallow for a long way out so you could walk out really far. Garmisch also enjoyed it here:

Martin, enjoying the shade under our little yellow umbrella:

Cala Biriola. This is one of the beaches with smooth white rocks instead of sand:

We snorkeled a bit around these rocks but there aren't many fish in these waters.

Cala Mariolu. This, along with Cala Gabbiani, had cliffs behind it that started to block the sun around 3pm. So you had to get here early to enjoy the sun.

Cala Gabbiani, which I thought was the prettiest beach. Possibly because big boats weren't allowed near it so it wasn't very crowded. I didn't take many pictures at this beach because the sun had already gone behind the cliffs so the beach was all in shade.

These are probably all starting to look the same to you.

This is called the Pool of Venus. It's not a beach but a little cove where the water is a very bright aqua color. People drive their boats here and drop anchor for the day. I know I would:

Finally, we come to Cala Goloritze. It was the farthest away from Cala Gonone and is only accessible by foot or swimming (from a boat offshore, boats just aren't allowed to get within a certain distance of the beach). It's a UNESCO site. By the time we got here on our small boat trip it was cloudy and the beach was no longer in the sun anyway due to the cliffs behind it. But you can still tell that the water is a gorgeous deep blue color. And the cliffs to the side of it are very unique:

Floating on our noodles near Cala Goloritze:

That's the beach in front of Martin. It gives you an idea of the size of these beaches. The cliffs two pictures above are just to the left in this picture:

And here are some of the cliffs inbetween the beaches, which are also quite breathtaking:

And some goats, hanging out in the road out of town. We came across horses, cows, pigs, and goats in the roads. Apparently Sardinians don't believe in fences.