Hotel Cala di Volpe, a Luxury Collection Hotel

When the Aga Khan's consortium developed the Costa Smeralda in the 1960s, the architect Jacques Couelle built this hotel to look as though it had always been there: a deliberately irregular fishing-village silhouette of towers, arches and rough plaster, with no two rooms quite the same shape. It remains the most recognisable building on the coast.

The hotel sits on its own bay at the head of the Cala di Volpe inlet. There is a very large saltwater pool, a private beach reached by boat shuttle, several restaurants including one built out over the water, a spa, tennis and a golf course nearby at Pevero. The suite at the top has a reputation as one of the most expensive hotel rooms in Europe.

Porto Cervo and its marina are a few minutes away, and Olbia airport around forty. It is an unapologetically seasonal, unapologetically social place - quiet in April and May, extremely busy in August - and it shuts completely for the winter.