Every design for Terranoa/Olbia

Olbia sits at the head of its own gulf on the north-east coast of Sardinia, with the island of Tavolara offshore and the Costa Smeralda just up the coast. Its port is one of Sardinia's main links with mainland Italy, so for many people the town is their first sight of the island. Nuragic people and Phoenicians settled here before the Greeks gave it a name meaning "happy"; in the Middle Ages it was the capital of the Giudicato of Gallura, one of the four independent states of Sardinia, and in Sardinian it is still Terranoa.

What sets it apart is how much of that past still breaks the surface of a busy port town. Stretches of Le Mure Puniche, the Carthaginian walls, survive; the Acquedotto romano di Olbia and the Cisterna Romana di Olbia recall the Roman harbour; the Romanesque former cathedral of San Simplicio dates from the eleventh and twelfth centuries; and the Museo di Olbia gathers the finds. The Parco Fausto Noce is the largest park in Sardinia.

If Olbia is where you grew up, you know the gulf at dawn and the ferries coming in. This map is your harbour.