It's been a busy six weeks spread over a couple of continents and one small volcano causing chaos across the world. I'm still not sure if my mind and body have caught up to each other, but I am pretty sure I am tired of airports and sitting in seats staring at the back of the seat in front of me.
The opportunity of a 4-day weekend, thanks to Easter, was too good to pass up, so off we went to Sardinia. It is one of the two larger islands off the west coast of Italy in the middle of the Mediterranean, with Corsica (France) being just above it. It is Italian by nationality, but is a hot pot of culture, with influences from numerous societies dating back to 7,000 BC.
We flew into Cagliari in the South and hired a car for the four days and took as many coastal and mountain roads as possible. It was my first driving experience on the continent, so why not get a manual and get lost on some country roads. We arrived at night time and struggled to get out of the airport car park. This did not bode well for the rest of my driving. We persevered and struggled on and somehow managed to find a campsite for the night 30kms up the road at 10 o'clock at night and even found a cheap and amazing pizza for dinner (with obligatory 1/2 litre of house red). Maybe Sardinia was looking after us, after all.
We awoke to a cloudless Mediterranean sky, with the sun beating down (well, when compared to London). We strolled down to the beach and watched the crystal clear water lap the sandy beach. Yep, leaving down for the weekend was a good decision. We headed off to some ruins to get a dose of culture. These were Roman and pre-Roman so only up to 200BC. Typical Roman ruins with houses, temples, an amphitheater and running water. The tile mosaics on the floors of some of the rooms and bath houses were amazing. They either had a lot of time or a lot of skill. A Spanish watchtower in the background of the photo below added a few years later.
From there it was into the car for some amazing coastal driving. Green hills with outcrops of limestone or yellow wild-flowers on one side. Then the variations of blue of the other with splashes of white sand. Combine that with windy roads on coastal cliffs and you have a great day driving.
Unfortunately, the water looked better then it actually felt. It was a little chilly and swimming was only possible in midday with full sun. Sure looks nice though.
Of course, being so close to the ocean has its benefits on the dinner table too. The left overs of an amazing meal below. It will be remembered for the Octopus Salad, that had plenty of octopus that had been cured in lemon and oil, and not a sign of greenery anywhere. Was great though.
Sardinia is a strange tourist destination. It apparently crawls with tourists during July and August but for pretty much the rest of the year it's quiet. Being Easter, we thought it would be a shoulder season and a build up to the high season. However, it was still very much low season. Campgrounds were like ghost towns and indeed many of them were still closed, including one where we had pitched our tent for 2 hours before being told we had to move on. Not exactly what you want to here at 8pm. The positive of this is we had most of the ruin sites to ourselves. Below is a Nuraghe ruin site dating from something ridiculous BC. Inside they had amazing domed ceilings.
Being Easter Sunday in a predominantly catholic society, we were bound to run into something celebratory. So we headed inland and went from West to East. We missed a town parade by half an hour. Just in time to see them standing around, in costumes, drinking at bars, whilst some of the more observant catholics were coming out of churches.
Being Easter Sunday, we had to take the good with the bad. It was lunch time and we soon discovered that most of the restaurants were closed. The one's that weren't, were completely booked out. So back we jumped in our little car and kept on driving down the road where upon we saw a sign for an Agri-tourismo place. A farm that also has a restaurants and some rooms. It turned out to be a lovely white-washed farmhouse in the middle of all their olive trees and most importantly, they could squeeze two more in.
We were a little early but soon massive family groups arrived spanning 3 and 4 generations. We were seated and commenced to eat for about 3 or 4 hours. We started about 12.30pm or 1pm and we left at about 4:30pm while they were still contemplating second desserts and coffees. The food was amazing with a lot of it being from the farm. We drank their home-made wine, aperitivos and liqueurs. Cold Antipasto included cured meats, olives and cheeses. Warm anitpasto included mushrooms covered in butter and garlic, heart in a sauce and grilled aubergine. Primo plato was two types of pasta: a ravioli and a gnocchi. Secondi were roast pork, roast veal, a lamb stew and fresh vegies. Dessert was a pastry with home-made honey. And of course, fruit, coffee and liqueurs. There was a massive amount of food and seconds were offered on everything. We had to squeeze ourselves back into the car and find a campsite, which thankfully, wasn't too hard once we made it back to the ocean.
Our final day consisted of more windy mountain roads.
Until we came out at the ocean again.
We made it back to airport, returned the car. Flew back to London for two days work before flying out to Australia on Wednesday night.
We headed home for two weeks to catch up with two families and go to two weddings. It was a rushed affair in South-East Queensland jumping between Brisbane, Toowoomba, the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast. It was all perfectly planned and going like clockwork until a volcano started spewing out ash and closing airports all over the place. We ended up being delayed by 9 days, which was a nice relaxing bonus.
And most importantly, we arrived back on Friday morning, just in time to catch our flights to Rome for the first May long weekend. Rome, quite opposite to Sardinia, doesn't have a low season. It's always busy and there are always crowds.
So Rome is a one-off. You don't compare it to other places. So many sights to see, too many tourists, too many bad restaurants. But it is all completely worth the effort. We ticked off the Colosseum and the Forum Romani on the first day.
We did a massive amount of walking on the second day visiting fountains, churches and plazas.
And the third day was all about standing in lines in the Vatican. We were there first thing and waited just over an hour to get in. By the time we came out, the line was three times as long. It's just one of those things you have to do.
Two happy campers who were glad a volcano didn't disrupt their trip to Rome. There are a million more photos below in the album.
