Sardinia is the beautiful Mediterranean island where the Italian jet-set go to play every summer. Yet ever since the Aga Khan created the Costa Smeralda in the 1950s, its dazzling emerald waters have attracted Hollywood stars, European royalty and, in the most recent decade, Russian oligarchs.
Every summer super-yachts glide into the hub of Porto Cervo, where Roman Abramovich and Silvio Berlusconi are among the owners of multimillion-euro waterfront villas, while visiting celebrities stay at the exclusive Cala di Volpe hotel that featured in the 1977 James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me.
The global downturn and a flatlining Italian property market have not drastically lowered the high prices in this rarefied corner of northeast Sardinia, making other parts of this craggily alluring