Alghero

The street signs are bilingual and the accent lifts in ways that don't sound Italian at all. Alghero's old town sits on a promontory above Sardinia's northwestern coast, its honey-coloured ramparts catching the last of the day's light as coral-fishing boats motor back through the harbour mouth. Walk the bastions at dusk and the Catalan Gothic arches frame a sea that turns from turquoise to copper in minutes.

Alghero is the legacy of fourteenth-century Catalan-Aragonese colonisation — the only city in Sardinia where a variant of Catalan, called Alguerès, is still spoken by older residents. The historic centre retains its original street plan within sea walls, its churches and palazzi displaying the pointed arches and rose windows of the Crown of Aragon. Neptune's Grotto, a stalactite cave accessible by boat or a 654-step cliff staircase, draws visitors to the Capo Caccia headland nearby. Alghero is also the centre of Sardinia's red coral industry, harvested from the seabed since the Middle Ages and worked into jewellery sold in workshops throughout the old town. The surrounding coastline — the Coral Riviera — alternates between white sandy beaches and dramatic limestone cliffs.