Olbia Geography & Climate

Olbia sits at the end of a long, shallow, well-protected inlet on the north-east coast, which is the reason there has been a port here for two and a half thousand years.

The gulf

The Gulf of Olbia reaches several kilometres inland and is screened from the open sea by islands and headlands. It is shallow and silty at its head — good for shelter and for shellfish, and the reason Roman ships that sank here were preserved in mud rather than broken up on rock.

Granite

Gallura is granite country, and it looks unlike the rest of Sardinia. The rock weathers into rounded boulders, domes and wind-carved hollows, pale grey and pink, and the coast north of Olbia is granite broken by small sand coves — the formation the Costa Smeralda was built to exploit.

Cork

Inland the granite hills carry extensive cork oak forests. Sardinia produces the large majority of Italy's cork, and the trade is centred on the Gallura towns behind Olbia. Stripped trunks, raw red under the removed bark, are a normal roadside sight.

Tavolara

Offshore, Tavolara is a single block of limestone about five kilometres long rising sheer to 565 metres — geologically foreign to the granite around it, and visible from most of the coast.

The shellfish beds

The shallow, brackish head of the gulf is one of Italy's more significant mussel and clam grounds, worked from rafts and poles that are visible from the waterfront. It is an old use of the water and an awkward one: the same shallowness that makes the beds productive also makes them vulnerable to whatever the town and the port put into the gulf, and water quality here has been a recurring local argument.

Wind

The gulf is sheltered but the open coast is not; the maestrale and the levante both work this shore hard.

Olbia has a Mediterranean climate, milder and wetter than the south of the island.

Summer

July and August are hot and dry, with highs usually between 30 and 33°C. The gulf is sheltered, so the town can feel airless when the open coast a few kilometres away is pleasant; this is a place where the beach is genuinely cooler than the centre.

Winter

Winters are mild and green. January highs run around 14°C, frost is rare on the coast though the Gallura hills inland get it, and the countryside is green from November through spring.

Rain

Around 600 millimetres a year, more than Cagliari, concentrated October to March. The granite sheds water fast and the streams here are torrents that run hard and briefly.

Wind

The maestrale dominates, and the north-east coast also takes the levante off the Tyrrhenian. Wind is the reason this coast sails well and the reason ferry crossings are cancelled.

The sea

Swimmable from June into October, and famously clear over granite and white sand.

Why September works

The sea here holds its heat well into autumn, so September and early October are often better for swimming than June, when the water is still cold from winter. Combined with the collapse in prices after the third week of August, it makes the early autumn the most sensible time to come by a wide margin.

The season

Worth stating plainly: the tourist economy here runs roughly from June to mid-September and then stops. In November much of the Costa Smeralda is shut.