CURVESCOUTThursday Ride #8 · 31 December 2026
SS125 Orientale Sarda
Cagliari to Olbia · Italy
- 277 km
- 5 h 20 min riding
- 5 stops
- one way
This Thursday: SS125 Orientale Sarda. 277 km from Cagliari to Olbia in Italy, about 5 h 20 min in the saddle. A December ride for the south: it never climbs above about 300 m, well away from the high passes that close for the winter.
The map loads with the stops and the ride's road.
The ride, stop by stop
1Cagliari
Cagliari is a port city that grew on hills, and that is the key to understanding it. The capital of Sardinia climbs from the harbour up a steep rock crowned by Castello, the old walled quarter, which the Pisans fortified in the thirteenth century with two white limestone towers that still stand, the Torre dell'Elefante and the Torre di San Pancrazio. From the ramparts you can look across the whole gulf, the salt pans, the long white beach of Poetto and the low mountains beyond. The city's history is as layered as its streets. Phoenicians founded a port here, the Romans built an amphitheatre cut into the rock, and Aragonese and Spanish rulers added churches and palaces.
Nature is close at hand. The Molentargius salt pans, on the edge of the city, are a shallow wetland where flocks of pink flamingos feed, and they are visible from the road, which is a surprise in a city of this size. Poetto beach, about eight kilometres long, is the city's backyard, crowded in summer and almost empty in winter. Seafood dominates the menu, with bottarga, the cured fish roe, and fregola, tiny toasted pasta, appearing often. In the market of San Benedetto, one of the largest covered markets in Italy, fish, cheese and vegetables are piled high.
2Muraverakm 58
Muravera lies in the south-east corner of Sardinia, on the flat, fertile plain where the Flumendosa river reaches the sea. After hours of mountain road, the change of scene is striking: the land opens out into orchards, mostly citrus, with irrigation channels and small farms between the town and the coast. With about 4,400 people, it has the shops, bars and fuel you would expect, and neighbours such as Villaputzu and San Vito are only a few kilometres away. The nearest larger town is Maracalagonis, a good half hour back toward Cagliari.
The road here is the SS125, the Orientale Sarda, which runs along the eastern side of the island from Cagliari up toward Olbia. In this section it is less about the bends and more about the contrast. Behind you are the granite mountains of the Sarrabus, with their scrubby slopes of cork oak and maquis, while ahead the coast has long sandy beaches and clear water. The ride in from the mountains is a fine one, with big, flowing curves, and the surface is usually good, though patchy in places and with farm traffic and slow vans that can interrupt the rhythm.
3Bauneikm 147
Baunei hangs on a ledge of limestone above the Tyrrhenian sea, a town of two thousand people with the Supramonte of Baunei rising behind it and the coast far below. The SS125 comes through here on one of its most spectacular sections, climbing out of the valley from the south and then running along the face of the mountains with sea views opening on the left. The Gennargentu massif, Sardinia's highest ground, lies inland, and the whole district is one of the wildest corners of the island.
It is a place of shepherds, and a place of walkers. The Selvaggio Blu, a famous multi-day trek along the coast, starts near here and crosses terrain so steep and so remote that the walkers carry ropes. On the plateau above the town, the Golgo plateau holds a deep karst pit called Su Sterru and a small church amid the oaks, reached by a rough track, where the world feels very quiet. If you have a few hours, the road to the plateau is worth a look, though it is narrow and rough in places.
4Dorgalikm 185
Dorgali sits on the eastern flank of the Supramonte, the limestone massif that fills the middle of Sardinia's Nuoro province, and the town spreads over its slope with the mountains behind and the Gulf of Orosei somewhere in the haze ahead. Six thousand people live here, enough for fuel, banks and a proper choice of bars, which matters because the SS125 Orientale Sarda is a long road with long gaps. Fill the tank here and you will not think about it again until Baunei or Tortolì.
The Supramonte is a rough, dry country of white rock, holm oak and juniper, cut by deep gorges. The best known is Gola Su Gorropu, a canyon whose walls rise several hundred metres and which can be reached on foot from the road above, a walk that takes a few hours and is not for flip-flops. Not far away, the ruins of the nuragic village of Tiscali hide inside a collapsed limestone dome, a place where people lived in the Bronze and Iron Ages and, according to the story, retreated when Rome arrived. Sardinia is thick with nuraghi, those conical stone towers of the second and first millennia before Christ, and this part of the island has some of the best.
5Olbiakm 277
Olbia is the gateway to Sardinia for most people arriving by sea. Ferries from Genoa, Livorno and Civitavecchia dock in the long gulf, and an airport serves the Costa Smeralda, the glamorous strip of coast to the north, which the Aga Khan developed in the 1960s. The town itself is older than it looks. The Greeks called it Olbia, meaning happy, and the Romans used it as a major port; in the 1990s, when workers dug a tunnel under the harbour, they found the remains of more than twenty ancient ships. The Romanesque church of San Simplicio, in grey granite, is one of the oldest in Sardinia.
The area is Gallura, a land of granite, cork oak and low, scented scrub called macchia, with rounded boulders balanced on the hills like sculptures. Offshore, the limestone block of Tavolara island rises sheer from the sea, an eerie silhouette, and local food reflects the mix of land and sea, with seadas, fried pastries filled with cheese and drizzled with honey, and a glass of the local Vermentino white wine. Mirto, a liqueur made from myrtle berries, ends the meal.
Before you go
277 km one way, about 5 h 20 min of riding. Italy: No vignette - motorway tolls are paid per journey. Check the weather and any road closures before you leave; mountain and coast roads change with the season.