Climbing Sardinia (or other destination), looking for advice ....

Has anyone climbed in Sardinia?  Trying to find a location where my climber daughter and i can get out and climb while wife and other daughter go to the beach, shop, or other adventures.

Cala Gonone in Sardinia looks like a great spot to accomplish both, but wondering if its easy to navigate and find routes and crags, etc.   The only international climbing i've done was El Potrero Chico.

Also open to other european suggestions for a climbing trip + beach vacation?  Kalymnos seems a bit hard to get to.   Mallorca or other part of Spain?  Or beta/advice on Sardinia too please and thanks

Cala Gonone and Cala Luna would tick all those boxes for sure, and yes, all very easy to navigate and to find cliffs, etc. Kalymnos/Telendos would be a sure bet as well. Ibiza and Mallorca have the same deal as well--beaches and climbing, all easy to access.

The Costa Blanca would be much faster and easier to get to than any of the islands you are talking about. Plus the train service between all the cities in the area is cheap, fast and easy, so if you took the rental car and they wanted to go explore the local cities, it would be easy to do.
I like the Omio app for getting around by train in Europe because you find your route and schedule in the app, pay and book tix, and get etix in the app. So easy. There are other apps too.  

Add Sicily to your list

For Sardinia- Cala Gonone is gorgeous and Cala Luna can't be missed. Ulassai Canyon is sweet and quite accessable. Isili is inland, and hard overhangs - great for rainy weather. Capo Testa looks stunning but in my experience, it's choss. Domusnovas has awesome caves - some for climbing and some for exploring. Capo Pecora for trad, but it can get greasy from the sea mist (but stunning photography since you're climbing out of the sea onto tall towers). 

Leonidio Greece has climbing roughly on par with Kalymnos and logistics are maybe a bit easier. A good days drive from Athens but enjoyable to see a bit of Greece. Seemed a bit more like seeing real Greek culture as opposed to the tourist scene on Kalymnos. Good variety of things to do for the non- climber as far as exploring the countryside. Having said that, if you haven’t been to Kalymnos, there is is a reason it is so popular. The volume of quality climbs is amazing. 

We didn't think getting to kalymnos was too difficult in June. It seems like a lot of steps but it was a nice afternoon. The Munich airport terminal that the flight leaves from has beer.

1. Fly to Munich (or any other city with a flight to kos, this was cheapest when we looked). 

2. Fly to Kos (<3 hours) 

3. Walk out of the very small airport to the northwest side of the parking/bus lot (left, past all the tour buses) and get on the city bus to "KOS TOWN". get off at the first stop, mastihari port, after like 10 minutes. It's obvious, the bus pulls up right next to the pier. We got on the last bus at 19:45, it was on time. Like 2€ per person or something. 

4. Walk out, buy a ticket to Kalymnos. We took the last ferry at 20:30, 10€ per person. 30 minutes.

A few options to get to massouri:

5a. At this point, if you have a place to stay(I hope you do), the person running your Airbnb/hotel may have talked to you about a taxi and arranged one for you, but it's easy enough if they didn't. Find a taxi (they honk at you of they think you might need a ride) and ask them to go to massouri. Ours was 20€. They are everywhere, and 21:00 is about when the evening starts in kalymnos in the summer, so you won't be stranded by any means. Probably about 30 minutes. You can't walk. Kalymnos has no street names or addresses, hence the lodging arranging it in advance, but if you get to massouri, you can walk to most places in 5-10 minutes with instructions or ask someone (most people spoke decent English, some very good). If you want a place to route a taxi, panos resteraunt is a fairly centralish location. 

5b. Rent a car or scooter that night or the next day. For two of us, a scooter was enough. Scooters didn't seem to kid friendly though. Pretty cheap, ours was 9€ a day for 13 days. If you do this, remember that the two streets in massouri are one way. 

5c. There is also a bus, but we found it unreliable when we used it to return to the port. There is only a time listed for when it leaves emporious or kastelli, so you have to estimate. It got to massouri at like 17:00 with a depart listed as 16:30 from kastelli. 30 min, 2€ per person .

Alternate: 

We departed by taking the overnight ferry to Athens/Piraeus. I loved it, the aegean sea is absolutely glass at night. The ferry departs from kalymnos/pothia (where you arrived by ferry but the other pier) so to get there, reverse step 5. Blue star lines with our own cabin for two was 250€ and left kalymnos at 21:35 to arrive in Piraeus at 8:10. From there you could train to the airport (I don't know the duration/price). The cabin was pretty nice. I've never done this, so I shelled out for the novelty. 

Mallorca is incredibly easy. It’s basically a cheap commuter flight from Barcelona or Madrid to Palma. Less than an hour from Barcelona, and several flights per day.
The scene and climbing are better in Kalymnos, but the beaches are better in Mallorca.
Haven’t been to Sardinia. 

Corsica is also quite nice. Though I've heard the climbing is better on Sardinia.

Transport beta for Kalymnos. This info is a few years old…… car rental in Kos was the same price per day as getting a scooter in Massouri. 

Greg R wrote:

Transport beta for Kalymnos. This info is a few years old…… car rental in Kos was the same price per day as getting a scooter in Massouri. 

I think you meant Pothia?  I’m not sure why one would rent a car in Kos. We rented a Fiat Panda in Massouri for 16 Euro/day. It was from the owner of the Snack Bar. 

Frank Stein wrote:

I think you meant Pothia?  I’m not sure why one would rent a car in Kos. We rented a Fiat Panda in Massouri for 16 Euro/day. It was from the owner of the Snack Bar. 

Rental in Kos was only 10 euro/day YMMV

Flights to Kos are sometimes more frequent or less expensive than flying direct to Kalymnos

Ferry fee was about the same as taxi from airport to port

Greg R wrote:

Rental in Kos was only 10 euro/day YMMV

Flights to Kos are sometimes more frequent or less expensive than flying direct to Kalymnos

Ferry fee was about the same as taxi from airport to port

So, you took the big ferry from Kos, the one that can transport cars, right? How much did vehicle transport cost?

Can’t say the cost of this short transport with car from Kos but can see this as viable means of renting the car. Not having a car and reliable transport around Kos in the off-season was an unforeseen challenge I would not wish to repeat.

Edit: The OP is not even asking about Kalymnos so sorry I am contributing to thread drift. My experience from Jan 2022 was spending a total of two unplanned nights lodging on Kos beyond my control after cancelled flights to Kalymnos airport (high winds the incoming flight and closed down for the outgoing flight) from Athens. I spent about 8 hours in Kos town on a park bench waiting for the big ferry above to finally arrive when Mastahari ferry was cancelled for two days straight due to weather. The actual climbing conditions in January were good once I finally arrived on Kalymnos for 10 days. Getting back and forth from Athens and to the US was nightmarish during Covid and major winter storms in Europe.

Frank Stein wrote:

So, you took the big ferry from Kos, the one that can transport cars, right? How much did vehicle transport cost?

20-25 euros. Since we were already flying into Kos we saved taxi fare to the ferry and taxi to Massouri so ferry cost was defrayed

Greg R wrote:

20-25 euros. Since we were already flying into Kos we saved taxi fare to the ferry and taxi to Massouri so ferry cost was defrayed

Actually, that’s not a terrible idea. One possible issue that we ran into was that there was a storm on the day we were leaving. We took the big ferry back to Kos, but the swell was too big for the ferry to drop its ramp. We had to return to Kalymnos where we got back on the smaller one (which uses a simple gangplank). If we had a car, we would have been hosed. But, I do like the idea of having a vehicle both on Kos and Kalymnos. 

If your only use of a car in Kos is to get from the airport to the ferry then I think renting a car on the Kos side is not logical.  You can take the bus for ~2 euros. But if you are doing more on Kos then it makes sense

Eric Engberg wrote:

If your only use of a car in Kos is to get from the airport to the ferry then I think renting a car on the Kos side is not logical.  You can take the bus for ~2 euros. But if you are doing more on Kos then it makes sense

The use of the rental car was for a month of climbing on Kalymnos. The point was that the rental car in Kos was less expensive than than on Kalymnos and you asked about the cost of the ferry. 

Greg R wrote:

The use of the rental car was for a month of climbing on Kalymnos. The point was that the rental car in Kos was less expensive than than on Kalymnos and you asked about the cost of the ferry. 

I don't think you can absolutely say that the car you rented in Kos was cheaper then EVERY rental car in Kaly - there are bargains to be had.  Pius you do have the expense and hassle (how often does the big ferry run?) of getting it there.  But either way I think the difference will be slight.  I had the impression that you were pushing the Kos rental be cause it gave you a way from the airport to the ferry and I don't really think that is a major selling point.  How about renting a car in Athens and taking it on the ferry.  Or maybe start in London....

Hi I just wrote a blog post that may be of help.

https://moredaysoff.wordpress.com/2023/09/16/the10-best-places-for-solo-climbers-in-europe/

I hope this sheds some light for the winter!

We just got done with a week climbing in Sardinia with Vertical Sailing Tours. Absolutely unique and awesome. Live on a sailboat and get dropped off to climb at oceanside crags. I'm posting a little late for anyone interested in trips this year, but for those planning for next year send them an email! They also go to Kalymnos.

https://www.verticalsailingtour.com/index.html