Cagliari

Cagliari needs 2 days: touring the Castello district, the walled old town on a hill with views over the entire bay, on one, and cruising the Gulf of Angels off the urban beach of Poetto, with over 8 km of white sand, on the other. May-June and September bring the mildest weather, avoiding the extreme heat of the Sardinian summer. It's inexpensive for an Italian regional capital. Its nearby salt pans, still in use, draw hundreds of pink flamingos every year who settle just meters from the city, and its old town preserves bastions and towers built by the Republic of Pisa in the 13th century, when the city was a key trading post in the western Mediterranean.