Sardinia

Well that was a long ferry ride but we have learnt a few things which will help us for our ferry ride back to Italy. 

1.       Get there early, luckily we managed to do this, as the earlier people get the best seats and that makes sleeping all the easier.

2.       Take sleeping bags – light covers are not enough during the night as the air con seems to stay on all night and it gets chilly on board

3.       Pillows are worth taking as well as the people with them looked far more comfortable than us. 

4.       Ear plugs are needed to drown out the loud snoring and talking

All in all we managed to get an hour or two of sleep each and we were glad when the ferry arrived in Cagliari at 8am. There was however a delay in getting off the ship, we think it was to do with a broken lift but everyone was talking in Italian so we just stood in the queue and waited. Once we were allowed to leave we hoped in the van and decided that the best thing to do on a couple hours sleep was explore Sardinia’s only city. We parked near the harbour and headed to a farmers market to get breakfast. It wasn’t as good as the other markets we had been to but we managed to get some tea, some fruit and a pastry thing (which we thought would be sweet but actually contained potato and spinach – it was still nice though). After this we headed to an area called Il Castillo which is a hilltop area with a castle. We wondered around the little streets for awhile and discovered that the G7 were meeting there to discuss something on transport, which is why we had spotted several police in the area – we thought it was weird as we hadn’t really seen many police in Italy. After we climbed back down the hill we wondered the streets for a little while looking at some of the churches, buying some local sweets (like amoretti) and getting huge foccicias for lunch before climbing another hill in the local park which gave us lovely views of the sea and lakes surrounding the city.

Once we climbed back down we thought it was probably best to head to the van and find somewhere to sleep.

We headed to Porto Botto for the night which was a beach with free parking so we knew we could sleep there in the van. As soon as we got there the call of the ocean was strong so we decided an afternoon swim was needed followed by some beers to watch the sun go down. Our parking space was in between the beach and some lakes where some flamingos were. I had never realised there were so many flamingos in Sardinia as I had seen in the last 12 hours. Before going to sleep we did have some stern words with the flamingos explaining we didn’t want a repeat of the night the cows moved us on!

The next morning, after a peaceful night’s sleep, we headed to another local beach were we did more swimming, a little snorkelling and some general relaxing. After a day here we headed across (by bridge) to a little island called Saint Antioco where we found a little area of land to sleep on as we planned to get the ferry across to another little island called Saint Pietro the next day.

We managed to get the ferry early the next day and headed to the main town on Saint Pietro where there was a food festival on. The island is renowned for its tuna and the festival focused on this. First we headed to a local beach (well I say local it was still 7 Km away and up lots of hill from the town).  Once we arrived at the beach we went to view the natural columns which were in the sea and made of rock. Sardinia’s love their rocks; especially ones which look vaguely like something. We spent a couple of hours at the beach before heading back to town for lunch at the festival, stopping along the way to say hello to more flamingos. We were then going to cycle to a area on the island where we could potentially see some birds  of prey but realised that it was about 10km away and over a large hill and I didn’t have the energy to do it. We did try to see if there was a bus but there were only 2 in the morning. Given our failure in seeing the birds we decided to head back to Saint Antioco for the evening. 

The following day we had to get some washing done and we needed to try and service the van (ie put water in the van, get rid of the used water and sort out the toilet). The only service on the island was expensive and didn’t look that useable. We did the washing and then headed out towards our next destination thinking that we would be able to find services somewhere along the way. Well that was easier said than done! It turns out servicing the van in Sardinia is not easy as there aren’t many official areas to do it and most charge (ranging from 5-15 euros) and the facilities are not the best, i.e. not all places have drinking water. After several stops we found a place in Buggeru where we filled with water but couldn’t empty the toilet (as it was technically siesta time and therefore we couldn’t use the services till the campsite opened at 4pm). From here we decided to go to a beach that is backed by 30 meter dunes, what the guidebooks failed to highlight was the 3km dirt track heading down to the beach which Pierre was not a fan of. It took us a good 30 mins to get down the track and we hoped we would be able to sleep down there as we really didn’t want to drive the track again tonight, especially not in the dark!

We did manage to stay at the dunes beach and it was a spectacular evening. After a late afternoon swim in the sea, we managed to shower and watch the sun go down before being amazed with the number of stars in the navy evening sky; I even managed to see a shooting star. The next morning we headed off back up the long dirt track and back onto the main road towards the north of the island. Our next stop was near Algerho at grotto du Neptune (via a much needed stop at Decathlon in Sassari for a sun shelter as we were getting burnt spending so much time on the beach). We parked at a beach just below the caves and tried out our new shelter which was easy to put up but we did worry how easy it would be to dismantle. We had a little swim and snorkel in the sea before deciding it was time to head to the cave. The cave was a five minute drive away but then required us to climb down just over 600 stairs (we knew the going down would be the easy part, it would be the coming back that would be difficult). We found the stairs and started to descend them but then there was a gate blocking the way, after having a quick chat with the Americans behind us (all deciding that we hadn’t heard that the steps were closed or anything we all decided to jump the gate and carry on down. We carried on for another couple of minutes before getting to a bigger and gate which we were not able to jump over so we headed back up to the car park to see what was going on. Shortly after arriving at the car park we found the actual stairs to the cave, where there were lots of people going up and down so we headed down these ones and arrived just in time for the 5pm tour. We walked around the caves on the tour and learnt about the different uses for the caves over the years and how the growth of the stalagmites has almost stopped now. It was a huge cave with lots of passages off which can only be accesses by qualified cavers. Once the tour was over we had the long hard climb back to the car park but we managed it fairly quickly with an ice cream from the cafe as a reward. There had always been the option to take a boat to the cave but I was glad we walked it as the views were lovely and the walk wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. 

We headed back to the other car park at the beach to sleep for the evening but it wasn’t a good night’s sleep. We were invaded by mosquitoes and every time we started to fall asleep we heard another one that we had to try and hunt down and kill. By midnight we had killed about 6 or 7 and by 3 am it was up to 10 and we still found some in the morning and had to kill another couple. We did have some bites on us the next day but it could have been worse if we hadn’t killed as many as we did.

The next morning we headed to Stintino to a beach called La Pelosa which was supposed to be the nicest beach in Sardinia. We were disappointed with it as it was soo busy (even though it was a Monday in June). We sat on the beach for a little bit and went for a snorkel but we decided that it was too crowded so decided to head on to our next destination which was Porto Torres. This is essentially a harbour town but it is set up for motorhomes and bikes so we managed to find parking easily and then jumped on our bikes for a tour of the town and even decided to eat out for a change (Rich was getting sick of home cooked pasta). Rich even managed two courses at the restaurant , a pasta dish and a meat dish of horse steak. 

The next day we got back on our bikes and headed down the path to one of the beaches for a morning by the sea, which included a snorkel around the inlets. We now had our own system which involves setting up the new sun shade, lying out the picnic blanket (thanks Lou, it’s very useful) in front, and having all our bags and towels in the sun shade. We can then sit in or out the shade as needed.   At lunch time we decided to head on eastwards to Santa Teresa, where I have been a couple of times, to visit our old haunts, including a very nice cocktail bar and the lovely beach. Santa Teresa isn’t as welcoming to motorhomes so we had to leave Pierre at the start of the town and ride around. While this is usually fine Santa Teresa is full of hills so it was hard work getting anywhere, even the down hills were quite scary!

The next day it was raining (this was the first rain we have seen in Sardinia). At a bit of a loss of what to do in the rain we decided to drive further eastward to Olbia where we cycled and walked around the city and had some lunch. We were looking for some tours to do in the next week but failed to book anything so we decided to just have some lunch before heading on to Golfo Aranci. Here we cycled around the little town trying to find an interesting snorkel tour. We eventually booked one for the following morning and then relaxed by the choppy sea for an hour or so. That evening we sat and watched the thunderstorm out to sea but managed to get back to the van before the heavens opened.

The following morning we went on the snorkelling tour to Travola Island which was interesting but there wasn’t as much marine life as we had hoped. We did manage to see a star fish and a large clam as well as hold a sea urchin which was interesting and not expected. We also had some time to walk about on the island which is a protected area but again the heavens opened so everyone was crowded under the single cover on the island until it stopped and we were able to head back to shore.

That afternoon we headed to Porto San Paolo beach which is heading south down the island, stopping at a shopping mall for some groceries and a much needed lunch of burgers and chips! We slept at the beach that evening and, apart for the Abba music which we could hear until 10.30, it was a peaceful night. 

The following morning we headed out to San Teodoro which is more of a bustling town and had a couple of nice beaches I wanted to go to. Instead of going into the town we headed straight for one of the beaches (Capo coda cavallo) which I heard was great for snorkelling but the car park doesn’t allow motorhomes so we had to park about 2km up the road and cycle, this would have been fine if it was flat but it wasn’t and with all our gear it was a struggle. However It was only about 10am when we got there and the weather still hadn’t really cleared up so after about an hour on the beach we admitted defeat and cycled back to the motorhome and headed into town where we managed to get some lunch, do some washing and have a siesta (I could get used to these!) but we were rudely awaken by a young man selling cheese! In the evening we walked into town and bought some dessert but then got caught in a rain shower which we were ill-prepared for and tried to wait out but ended up getting soaked on our walk home. 

The next morning was lovely and sunny so we decided to head back to the beach and to the other lovely beach which was about 5/6km from Capo Coda Cavello and was called Call Brandinchi, aka Little Tahiti. The car park for little Tahiti also banned motorhomes so we parked about half way between the beaches and cycled to little Tahiti first and spent a few hours there snorkelling and lazing on the beach. I was happily reading when a toddler accosted my kindle and started tapping away at all the buttons. We gathered that he was the son of one of one the beach sellers who wonder up and down the beach. The toddler who spoke no English happily continued to talk to us in Italian ignoring our questions about where his parents were.  When he parents finally came he hid in our tent while testing Richards Snorkel which he didn’t look to pleased about. When we finally got rid of our adopted child we got on the bikes and riding back past the motorhome to the other beach. After another couple of hours here we cycled back to the motorhome and headed back to our parking spot. Once back we had to get ready as we had booked dinner out at an agriturismo which is essentially a farm restaurant. These are where the menu is usually a set menu of several courses and all the food is sourced either through the farm or locally. In preparation we hadn’t eaten anything all day so thought we would be ready for this! We cycled to the restaurant (the set menu includes as much wine and water as you want so we didn’t want to drive) and were quickly seated in an old circular barn or oast house with our litre of farm made red wine and water. The place quickly filled up and the food started to be served and stated with bread, then meats and cheese, followed by cold vegetable dishes, a warm barley salad, warm vegetable dishes and that was just the appetizers. We then had starters, 2 different types of pasta, some slow roasted suckling pig, and several dessert courses followed by coffee and lemoncello with little sweets. We were truly stuffed and had to try to cycle back to the van.   

The following morning we were off to do some cannoning on the River Pitrisconi as I had heard that there was a lovely natural infinity pool there. The tour was a five hour tour with a couple of abseils and while it was my idea I wasn’t totally looking forward to them given my fear of heights. We met our instructor at 10.30 on Sunday morning and the other 4 people on the tour and headed up to the start in a 4X4. We had to all put on our wetsuits, harnesses and helmets and were given a quick safety briefing before we started the trek into the gorge. It wasn’t long before we reached the first abseil which was around 18 meters in height and which was terrifying but I managed to do it(with the aid of a safety rope) and even managed to jump off the wall near the bottom into the lake. Rich managed it with no problem. We then had a little swim before walking to the infinity pool which we slid into using a natural slide or toboggan as the instructor called it. After another short swim we had a 20 metre abseil which I found a lot scarier as the overhang was a lot harder and it was harder to find your footing on the way down. We continued down the gorge with another couple of abseils but these were much lower than the others and another couple of toboggans. The gorge was huge, beautiful and teeming with life. We spotted birds, some lovely frogs and many different types of insects (including red and blue dragonflies). We arrived at the finish at around 4pm and then released that we had to hike back up the canyon which took another hour. We got back to the car at around 5pm and once we were all changed back into normal clothing our guide gave us one last adrenaline rush by racing back down to the town and dropping us off at Pierre. 

We stayed another night in San Teodoro (mostly because we were too tired to move anywhere) but having decided that it might be pushing our luck to stay in our camping spot again we parked at the local La CInta Beach for the evening. However it wasn’t a quiet night and Sardinian’s seem to like to get to the beach very early (around 6am) so we also decided to head off to our next destination further south called Osalla. We decided a campsite was needed to fully service the van and give us time to rest up after a busy couple of days and as the Osalla site was directly on the beach it seemed to fulfil everything we needed. We relaxed there for 2 days and managed to ensure the kayak was fully repaired, catch up on sleep, swim in the sea and even catch up on our admin including writing this blog.