ZTL zones in Sardinia

Driving in Sardinia

Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean and the least practical Italian region to visit without a car. Public transport connects the main towns but not the coast, the beaches or the interior, and there is no motorway on the island at all — the SS131 Carlo Felice, running from Cagliari north to Sassari and Porto Torres, is the nearest thing to one. Distances that look modest on a map take real time.

Six towns restrict their centres: Cagliari, Sassari, Olbia, Nuoro, Alghero and Pula. Between them they cover the ferry ports, the cities that host the airports and the two old towns visitors most want to walk around, so the zones are hard to avoid encountering even on a short trip.

Alghero and Cagliari

Alghero’s old town is the classic case: a walled quarter on a promontory, built under Catalan rule and still Catalan-speaking, with bastions along the seafront and a grid of narrow lanes behind them. It is small, almost entirely restricted, and there is no reason to drive into it — the car parks along the seafront and outside the walls put you a few minutes from anywhere inside.

Cagliari is harder to read. The Castello district sits on a ridge above the port, reached by steep ramps and lanes, with the modern city wrapped around the bottom of it. Driving up is possible in places and rarely worth it; there are public lifts and a great many steps, and the sensible approach is to park in the lower town and go up on foot.

The beaches have limits of their own

Sardinia has begun capping access to its most famous beaches. These restrictions have nothing to do with ZTLs but catch drivers the same way. La Pelosa at Stintino limits the number of visitors a day, charges for entry and requires booking in summer; other beaches restrict or charge for parking, and some are reached only on foot or by boat. If a particular beach is on your list, check before setting off whether you can drive to it at all.

Arriving with a car

Ferries run to Olbia, Golfo Aranci, Porto Torres, Cagliari and Arbatax from Genoa, Livorno, Civitavecchia, Naples and Piombino, and bringing your own car across is common. If you hire instead, do it at the airport rather than in a town centre: the rental desks at Cagliari, Olbia and Alghero sit outside the restricted areas, whereas a downtown pick-up can put you inside one within a minute of collecting the keys.