The crackle of skis on vertiginous pistes, an icy puck at the base of a brawling mass of burly hockey stars or the moment of silence before the lycra-clad ski-jumper launches herself down an impossibly steep, purpose-built ramp – hardly the sights and sounds we expect in Yachting Monthly.

But it was a further offer of work on the Olympics – this time the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Games – that spawned our next cruising adventure.

Regular readers might recall that the Paris 2024 Olympic Games provided the perfect excuse to take our Moody 346, Heureuse, through the French inland waterways from Cherbourg to the Mediterranean, with six weeks in Paris as a working base while we working at the Paris Games.

Crossing the start line

Summer 2025 finds us in Port Napoleon, west of Marseille, now reunited with a mast and sails, facing the big question for all new Med cruisers – ‘turn left or turn right?’ And then another offer of work on an Olympic Games makes the choice for us.

Whilst a Winter Games in the high peaks of the Dolomites and the sleek city of Milan hardly offers onsite cruising grounds or marina berths for a 34ft yacht, it demands more knowledge of Italian culture, language and, of course, gastronomy.

With a need to stay easily available to get to Milan for Olympic planning and a fast route home for other work, the plan quickly came together to cruise along the French Riviera, the Ligurian coast of Italy, down to Tuscany, then hop across via Elba to Corsica and Sardinia. And all of it just a short hop for Bill from the Olympic Winter venues of the Games to come.

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The end goal was the Costa Smeralda, Sardinia – barely a couple of days’ hard sailing from Marseilles, but we planned a lazy meander around the coast with plenty of time to explore, to venture inland and add in the many islands, and most of all to dive into Italian life.

Over nine weeks, family and friends shared the journey and a lengthy layover in Genoa would allow for work time. It also offered plenty of scope to learn the quirks of stern-to Med-mooring and the joys of the fixed ‘slime-lines’. Forecasts for uncomfortably high summer temperatures, poor availability of berths and summer season pricing meant that the cruising would avoid the peak months of July and August.

The opening leg of the trip took in many of the classic delights of the Côte d’Azur and French Riviera (the charming and quintessential Provence port of La Ciotat, anchorage in Millionaire’s Bay off Antibes, diving off the transom towards Pampelonne Plage, St Tropez, picturesque Villefranche and the thrill of briefly entering Monaco Old Port). All well-trodden cruising grounds, popular with yachts, superyachts and cruise ships alike. It was only as we ventured further east via Menton to Italy on the less familiar stretch from the Italian border east to Genoa, then south as far as our destination, Olbia in Sardinia, that we left most of the crowds behind.

The border town of San Remo was the first revelation – elegant and refined, claiming the Italian Riviera but reaching upwards, through stone steps and medieval alleys to the 14th century Sanctuary of the Madonna Della Costa with spiritual and physical oversight of the city, revealing spectacular views of the modern port and well-appointed marina.

Indeed, the local boatyard was not only capable but generously carried out a couple of minor running repairs on Heureuse, refusing any payment. Flight delays for our crew-change happily extended the stay in San Remo by 48 hours allowing a visit, appropriate to a city that originated the Eurovision Song Contest, to the spectacular Roman-style open air concert arena.

Another bonus evening saw hospitality from the San Remo Yacht Club with its active racing calendar and a waterside restaurant featuring local red shrimps, fresh pasta and ruby red Rossese wine from just up the hillside. Italians and visitors alike learn to embrace their elegant boulevards, medieval squares and balmy summer evenings, when just about everyone drinks, dines and promenades until the early hours. Some lessons are easier to learn than others.

San Remo was hard to leave but eventually light breezes from the west, rather like a gentle hair-dryer, carried us east to a magical overnight anchorage on the northern coast of the private island of Gallinara. As the day-trippers departed and sunset delivered natural pyrotechnics, we were alone for swimming and dinner on deck.

It was the perfect Mediterranean evening on the water… until just after midnight when the beach club on the mainland, over a mile away, blasted out ‘banging tunes’ for the next four hours.

Lively weather and lumpy seas for a couple of days saw us scuttle past spectacular Riviera resorts and hilltop villages to the major port city of Genoa and the mid-summer layover.

September brought abatement to the heatwave and an exodus of tourists, and we headed south, hugging the heart of the Ligurian coast. A short hop unveiled the first of its star attractions – the Cinque Terre. An UNESCO World Heritage site, National Park and Italian treasure, this short stretch of spectacularly craggy coast is framed by five breathtaking, cliff-top coastal villages.

Photogenic cinque terre

Our original plan was to moor off and explore by tender but this is really only possible in the most settled of weather so we cruised just passed the Park and put into the large and sophisticated (code for expensive…) naval harbour of La Spezia. From there an engineering wonder of a train line links each of the Cinque Terre, making it possible to visit all five in a day.

Each village has a slightly different character so the crew opted for unique activity in each – to start with, energetic sightseeing via endless steps, sea bathing to recover at the next, lunch on the cliffs at the third, with artisan gelato a must at the fourth, and the perfect finale? After a 400-step climb – a rewarding, and weapons-grade Limoncello with a spectacular view as the sun began to set.

Still dogged by a pattern of high winds followed by light airs, motor-sailing further south opened up another Italian maritime highlight – though perhaps one for the more esoteric. Viareggio is celebrated on the one hand by apostles of Byron and Shelley and with equal reverence for the cathedrals of Italian superyacht construction.

The British Romantics were both regular visitors and sometime residents in the area, whilst 29-year-old Shelley died when his wooden sailing boat went down in a storm nearby, his body washing up in Viareggio. Two hundred years on, the city is a Mecca for very different yachts – the gleaming masterpieces from Benetti, Sanlorenzo and Codecasa – motor yachts as large as cruise ships but with ten times the panache. Sitting in the cockpit of our humble 1988 British sloop, a stream of helicopters buzzed overhead as the world’s super-rich and super-famous queued up to see their biggest toys come to life.

History and gastronomy

Making south at five knots through the Tyrrhenian Sea, it’s easy to forget how accessible this coast is to the urban gems of Tuscany. From Porto di Pisa, a short cruise south from Viareggio, we take a 20- minute bus ride to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It’s an icon we all think we know, but visiting late in the day in mid-September when most of the visitors had left, is nothing short of breathtaking.

Autumnal sun on Carrara marble and the famously wonky bell-tower set alongside the equally impressive Duomo and Baptistry, it was the perfect reminder that cruising can be as much about inland exploring as finding the perfect overnight anchorage or a day of endless beam reaches between islands.

It was a series of islands that dominated the next stage of our cruise. Elba was the first – almost synonymous for most of us with Napoleon – though his exile there lasted barely 10 months. After the short crossing from the Italian mainland, Elba looms large, rocky, tall and impressive.

Like Napoleon, our arrival on the island was at the capital and main harbour, Portoferraio – a picture-postcard port tucked into the most protected of hooks in the north-eastern coastal tip, surrounded on three sides by well mannered and spectacular Italianate architecture. Portoferraio is a joy – by turns, upmarket and chichi, but also authentic.

Its central square is busy with local families enjoying simple Elba gastronomy based on rich local ingredients, accompanied by salted anchovies, onions, tomatoes, basil, parsley, green peppers, black olives, pine nuts, capers and more. Dining eventually complete, we returned to the boat and stood transfixed by the lunar eclipse casting night-time shadows over the port.

Elba offers a cruising paradise with protected bays and anchorages on all sides and we could happily have taken a week to slowly circumnavigate. But strong southerlies were building and storms brewing in the forecast dictated a route ducking and diving along the north coast.

Twenty-four hours sitting out a Mediterranean hose-down meant exploring the old fishing port of Marciana Marina – rich in maritime history and dominated by the Torre degli Appiani, a 16-century watchtower. Then a brief window in the weather opened up a chance to take the 30-mile crossing from Elba, almost due west, to Corsica and its northern capital, Bastia.

Lively seas and fresh southerlies gave us a fast crossing under genoa alone, and late afternoon brought a welcome into Bastia’s cosy and recently regenerated Old Port, giving a city centre mooring under the ancient cliff-top Citadel.

A change of courtesy flag emphasised the return to France, but a second flag on the halyard was perhaps more significant. Many Corsicans, like their Sardinian neighbours to the south, seek every opportunity to expose their unique island identity rather than that of their national governments in Paris or Rome.

The Moorish image of resistance on their flags is potent and articulate. More benign and celebratory was the live folk band, boisterously accompanying Sunday lunch of local charcuterie, wild boar, fresh pasta and regional wine in the square of the hill-top village of Vescovato – the perfect way to welcome new crew and thank those heading to the airport for a flight home.

Entering restricted waters

The west coast of Corsica has a reputation for drama, spectacle and exciting sailing, but with big westerly Mistrals blowing up and a rookie crew, we had no qualms about routing down the less noteworthy eastern seaboard. Even there, Heureuse managed to offer us a little drama of our own making.

Cruising south a mile or so off the coast we remarked that what little traffic seen around us was all going north. Then our VHF cracked into life with a call on CH16 for ‘Sailing Yacht Heureuse’. It was the French Coast Guard politely, but firmly, informing us that we were entering an active military firing zone and we should ‘turn north immediately and make good speed’.

Later we wondered how we were supposed to have known about this military zone (there was very little on the charts or pilot books), but we didn’t hang around for debate – and with reason. Minutes later Mirage jets rattled the rigging as they swooped from their coastal base on firing runs. A two-hour delay as we re-routed north and then far out to sea, meant a later than planned arrival near Porto Vecchio.

Before heading to the most southerly tip of Corsica, much attention to the forecasts was needed to plan our crossing of the infamous Bonifacio Strait to Sardinia. Here, monstrous Mistrals are often funnelled between the two islands into vicious gusts, mountainous seas and potent currents.

Lesser-known islands

Our plan was to head as far south in Corsica as we could, to a well-protected anchorage off the island of Cavallo – a discreet destination for the super rich – and wait for a weather window.

The wind gasped its last breath by mid-afternoon and we were granted a perfect and deserted bay to enjoy the sun, tranquil warm water and the most remarkable sunset, illuminating both Corsica and Sardinia and the smaller island chains between them. The next morning, with not a breath of wind, we motored across the Strait like a pedalo on the local park lake.

Taking in the spectacular scenery of the Maddalena Islands, it was time to join the jet set at play in the Costa Smeralda. Porto Cervo – the nexus of the region – was developed in the early 1960s by the late Aga Khan as a deluxe holiday destination.

The architecture, with its mix of faux vernacular styles, is not universally adored, but it’s hard to argue that the development isn’t working. The welcome at Porto Cervo – even for a modest old sail-boat like ours – was impeccable.

We were greeted and guided to our mooring by marina RIBs, the port staff going well above and beyond the call to help us as we turned the boat around for our final week sailing and new crew. The grandest of yacht clubs in the port were relaxed enough to provide reciprocal rights to their incredible rooftop bar, restaurant and elegant swimming pool – all while they hosted the aristocratic crews of the 52 Super Series racing fleet. It’s not the cheapest mooring of our cruise, but a remarkable experience and one to try at least once if you have the chance.

Squalls in olbia

With the final destination of Olbia almost in reach, we had just a couple of days to explore the wild and stunning bays, beaches and anchorages of the National Park around the Island of Tavolara. Eking out every hour of our final day at sea with a long lunch and swim stop at anchor, we then nosed through the narrow shipping channel into the busy commercial harbour of Olbia.

In bright sunshine we stopped at the fuel pontoon of the Marina di Olbia for a final fill-up and were surprised by the speed of service. There was a brusque urge from the pump attendant to look behind us and make all speed into the main marina and the safety of a berth.

Over the transom it was another world, with bubbling cumulus clouds convulsing and grey sheets of rain advancing on us from the other side of the harbour. Engine on, lines dropped and within moments we were under way, but the weather was quicker than we were. Within minutes of sitting in the sunshine, the lights went out, a swirling wind topped 40kts, the heavens opened and visibility was little more than a boat length ahead.

Heureuse, with a muscular keel, is never the most malleable going astern, but this was going to be the biggest test of Med stern-to mooring of the season. It took a number of attempts and some nerve-grinding swerves around the marina to make a final approach. Finally, with heroic support from the marina staff in RIBs and on the pontoon, we made land, fixed lines and battened down the hatches, relieved that nothing and no-one was damaged (at least physically).

We had two first-time sailors as crew that week, who coped remarkably well. We and they agreed that had this happened on their first rather than last day on board, we would have seen an immediate return to the airport and stiff drinks in the lounge before heading home.

Instead, it was a thoroughly celebratory meal that evening in buzzy Olbia Old Town where the Ristorante Disizos Sardos has a reputation for Sardinian specialities. The conversation was rich in memories, sailing and cultural adventures, hospitality and heritage.

We had just about coped with what the Med has thrown at us, with plenty still to learn, and yes we had fallen in love with Italy and all things Italian – and felt better prepared for their Winter Olympic Games to come. But what about our grasp of the Italian language? Well… ‘Grazie mille’ and ‘Arrivederci!’ (that’s about it…).

Top tips for cruising the Ligurian Coast

Take your time: Allow for onshore and inshore exploring and to accommodate the fierce Mistral.

Avoid August: Too hot, too crowded, too costly.

Beware of marina costs: Around €35/€55 per night (in May, June and Sept for a 34ft yacht) but some as high as €150 with little difference in service and quality of facilities.

Booking a visitor berth is unpredictable: some ports welcome advance booking, others only on the day. E-portals, apps, emails, phone calls – systems vary greatly between ports.

Mooring buoys are increasingly an option (especially in environmentally protected zones) but watch out for fees – some, though listed in guides, are provided specifically for the mega yachts and come in at €800 a night!

Med stern-to mooring with lazy lines (‘slime lines’) is less scary than you think – practice and a routine is all you need, and most ports have helpful staff on hand.

Squalls appear more quickly and violently than in UK waters (but disappear faster too).

Rod and Lu Heikell’s Med cruising guides are great, but use them alongside apps such as Navily for anchorages and Windy for weather.

We discovered that vinegar appears to work for jellyfish stings (a scan of the clear, azure water before a dip is also advised).

A few words of Italian work like gold dust – especially ‘Grazie mille’!

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