WHY can't British towns be as simple and beautiful as our Italian counterparts?

On the surface of it, Sardinia, has little more to commend it than say, Lincolnshire -- rugged interior with a few coastal resorts.

But while the UK county has striven, and failed, to make itself an attractive place to visit, Sardinia has made the very best of its natural resources and quietly gone about the business of attracting international investment yoked to local culture which offers a perfect holiday destination.

As an original observation about English-versus-Italian-towns I was a century behind the novelist and poet DH Lawrence who also visited the island.

I knew little of Sardinia before the visit but our trip, taken in early summer, quickly became a tale of two towns.

One, Alghero, was a fiercely beautiful walled-town on the north-west coast which, as well as a mecca for British and German tourists, is a self-contained fishing port. The other, Porto Cervo, on the north-east coast, has become the haunt of millionaires and their powerful allies.

Both are understated in a way which is impossible to parallel to any destination north of Lyon in southern France.

In Alghero, I spent the most relaxing days of the entire summer. Within the city walls the elegant, cobbled streets naturally shut out unwanted traffic and allowed the town to get on with its main purpose, relaxation. That is when its livelihood - fishing - was not being practised by the locals.

And the old town proved a great place to get lost. Influenced by Catalan culture after invasion by the Spanish, we toured the ramparts of the walls, the cathedral and the town hall, which doubled as a theatre. By the end of it all, everyone was set to face the gruelling task of shopping and eating. Eating, as one would expect, is a major part of culture on an Italian island. It was simple and exquisite.

One night we ate at a tradition Italian restaurant which included endless dishes of seafood, which is one of the country's specialities. The next night it got even better.

We were taken to a country restaurant in the north-east where we were to enjoy simple peasant cooking. After eight courses I stopped counting and became the victim of the final course.

That was roasted wild suckling pig. Sadly the pig in me had left little room for my favourite dish, and I was forced to gorge myself slightly beyond satiation. The individual bill for the evening, which included local wine, came to just £17.

Next day we crossed the rugged interior to the north-east strip of the Costa Smeralda. If Alghero is a quiet jewel then Porto Cervo is quite simply one of the strangest places to visit upon the earth's face.

Local legend has it that the Aga Khan, Prince Karim IV, first stumbled upon the stretch of coast when his yacht was forced to shelter from a storm in 1958. Four years' later he led a consortium to rebuild the coast whose main town, Porto Cervo, now resembles the set of the cult TV series, The Prisoner - as if it had been filmed in south California.

The result is a dinky wee village set in red-tiled stone which has eschewed crime and litter, to create a shopping paradise.

You will not stay here with a family for very long, unless you are very mad, or very rich.

A round of drinks will cost you more than your evening country meal, and you will not be able to enjoy them anyway as your restless eyes scour the Piazzetta for celebrities.

For around six weeks of the early summer, this is the place to be. If you've got class, of course.

The charge for mooring one's yacht is measured by the metre, currently nudging around £300 per daily unit but that does nothing to distract the great and the good, for whom dipping the toes into the local harbour just has to be done.

There is little else but al fresco shopping in a distressed Mexican-style post-modern village that was designed by a Californian architect and which owes more to Hollywood than the Med.

This isn't for the jet-set, it's for the people who own the jets, and as such relies upon understatement -- flash-in-the-pan is left strictly to the seafood.

TRAVELFACTS

:: JOHN Stacey visited Sardinia as a guest of Holiday Options and stayed at the Hotel Dei Pini in Alghero where seven nights costs from £529 per person and La Rocca in Baia Sardinia where seven nights is priced from £599 per person. Accommodation is on a half board basis and prices include return flights and transfers. Call Holiday Options on 0870 0130450.