Why you should visit the low-key, affordable stretch of Sardinia – where the locals go to escape the millionaires and superyachts

Sign up to Simon Calder’s free travel email for expert advice and money-saving discounts Get Simon Calder’s Travel email Get Simon Calder’s Travel email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. open image in gallery Cagliari from the sea It was this Versace-clad picture of Italian travel that I was looking to escape as I arrived in Sardinia’s southernmost city, Cagliari, bound for the rather more barefoot seaside village of Chia. open image in gallery Seaside scenes: Cagliari’s Poetto beach The next morning, it was less than an hour’s drive to Chia along smooth, well-marked roads, with only a dozen or so impatient Italians zooming past us in the opposite lane. Leaving Cagliari’s industrial zone, criss-crossing highways became welly-green hills topped with golden rock stacks, and signs for ferry ports switched to signs for leaping antelope. The indoor-outdoor thermal spa took us from healing saunas to bubbling whirlpools and icy outdoor plunges, all to the sound of birdsong as Chia’s migratory swallows swooped down to splash in the spa waters.