Villa Smeralda

Ask about the Dine Around programme before you arrive: on full board it opens the restaurants of the sister hotels across the bay, so dinner can move from one Costa Smeralda kitchen to the next through the week without a bill at the table. Pair it with the villa's own table for ten and a private chef evening, and you need never leave the headland unless you want to.

Villa Smeralda solves the problem that defeats most of the Costa Smeralda's grandest addresses: how to have the privacy of a villa and the service of a five-star hotel at once. It is the largest villa at a resort that has held its position on Romazzino Bay since 1965, and it works on two levels — literally, across its two floors, and figuratively, as a private house plugged into a full-service machine.

The terrace is where the stay happens. The private pool and its solarium face the sea, the table seats ten, and the gardens drop away to a private beach on the most sought-after bays in the Mediterranean — the kind of water that gave the coast its name. Indoors, the double living room carries a fireplace for the shoulder season, the five bedrooms are en suite, and the craftsman furniture keeps the whole thing Sardinian rather than generically luxurious. A butler runs the household; the resort's pools, tennis, spa and gym are minutes away when the villa's own pool palls.

For a family or a group taking the place whole, the maths is straightforward: the seclusion of a rented villa, the beach and kitchens of a grand hotel, and Porto Cervo's harbour and golf a short drive north for the days that call for company. It is the Costa Smeralda at its most indulgent — a private headland villa with everything a resort can carry brought to the door, and nothing of the resort's bustle left in the way.

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