Photo spot in Sardinia & the Costa Smeralda
Spiaggia del Principe
The Costa Smeralda in one frame: rounded pink granite, white sand and water that reads jade close in and deep blue further out.
About Spiaggia del Principe
Get directionsThe beach sits in a double bay with granite outcrops splitting it, and those rocks are the reason to shoot here rather than on a bigger, emptier beach: they give a foreground, a frame and somewhere to stand out of the wind. Work from the low rocks on either end towards the water, so the sand line runs behind rather than under your subjects.
Access is a ten-minute walk down a path from the road above Romazzino — there is no parking at the sand itself, and the last stretch is uneven. That walk is also what keeps it quieter than the beaches you can drive to, at least until mid-morning.
Sunrise is the session: the bay faces east, the water is glass, and the granite is at its pinkest in the first half hour. By eleven in August the beach is busy and the light is flat white.
Best time to shoot
Sunrise and the first hour after it; the last hour before sunset for warm rock
Tips
Ten minutes on foot from the road, no parking at the beach — allow for it. The beach is public, but bring nothing you would not carry back up the path.
Other spots in Sardinia & the Costa Smeralda
Porto Cervo — the marina and the Piazzetta
Whitewashed arcades, bougainvillea and a harbour of large yachts — the built half of the Costa Smeralda, and the one that works in hard light.
La Maddalena archipelago by boat
Granite islands with sand in every gap: Cala Coticcio, Spargi and Budelli — a day on the water and the only way to shoot the coves without a crowd.
Cala Goloritzé
A white pebble cove under a 140-metre limestone spire, at the foot of the Golfo di Orosei — boat in, or an hour of steep path down.
Alghero — the sea walls at sunset
A Catalan old town on a bastion above the water, with honey-coloured stone that takes the last light straight off the sea.
Ready to book?
Our concierge team will hand-pick 2-3 photographers who know Spiaggia del Principe — free of charge.