Sardinia

A warning....this blog could be hazardous to staying awake secondary to the boringness of its author. The purpose of blogging is so that Dick and I will be able to remember our trip in our current state of dementia. Don't feel guilty if you can't slog through it!

Better late than never at starting the blog. Internet access has been a bit of an issue! We arrived in Cagliari, Sardinia at 10 PM 10/21 and spent the night at the best Holiday Inn I've ever seen. Picked the car up in the morning and started on our way to explore Sardinia. Our first stop was in a small town called Nuruminis not far from Cagliari to get our first coffee of the day (the fabulous Cagliari Holiday Inn didn't provide coffee.) The tiny "bar" (local equivalent of the Starbucks on every corner) provided our first espresso and capuchino of the trip provided by our barista, Aurelio, who asked where we were from then pulled out a map of Sardinia and planned our trip for us. He was incredibly personable, knew the entire province and turned out
to be right on in his recommendations for places to eat, things to see and where to go.

We found our "agriturismo" near the town of San Vero Milis (pop 2500) with the help of our trustee GPS and after organizing things a bit, went out for lunch to a small town (Arborea)nearby to Gallo Bianco, a restaurant recomended by Aurelio. We had a fabulous lunch that included a typical Sardinian pasta called malloreddus that is like a small, but long, narrow shell shaped pasta with ridges and also some local wine that was yummy and cheap! (See picture of Gallo Bianco.)

The next day we went up the west coast as far as Alghero, a town that has a great Spanish and Moorish influence . The drive took us along twisty turny mountain roads that provided some truly spectacular views in addition to a viewing of numerous feral pigs along the way.

On the way back we stopped at several "nuraghe." Nuraghe are Bronze age stone dwellings (so about 4000 years old) that number about 8,000 on Sardinia. Many are single dwellings but there are also a number of large communities of nuraghe. They are truly amazing in that they are constructed without mortar and many are as much as 30 meters high.

The last that we saw was in a community of nuraghe called Santa Cristina where they were also having a festival dedicated to Santa Cristina. Many of the kids attending were in costume and were to perform traditional dances later in the night. We got a couple of pics of the kids and their totally obnoxious (but typical teenagers) boyfriends who are now my Facebook friends so that I could send them the photos I took.

One of the structures in Santa Cristina is a sacred well that is constructed such that an opening provides light at the spring and autumn solstice into the well indicating that the residents had an understanding of astronomy to a fairly sophisticated extent.

The next day took us to more nuraghe sites and another area more in the central part of the island. The idea that we were seeing entire villages that were 4000 years old blew us away!

EVERY day had us eating a great meal at lunch that lasted us most all day. In fact, most of the time, we haven't had dinner at all. Our last day in San Vero Milis, we went to another nearby small town restaurant that Aurelio had recommended. It was right on the water in an area where there is a marsh area that produces fabulous shellfish. I had a small order of pasta with tiny clams called arselle and a main of parmesan crusted fish...all terrific. Dick was boring and had calamari.

Our agriturismo was quite rustic but comfortable and our hostess, Daniela, was great!! She put out a great spread of all home made pastries in the morning that were wonderful. She also found our next agriturismo for us and called and made the reservation for us.

The next day (Mon 10/25) we moved to another agriturismo on the east coast of Sardinia in a town called Girasole. We did some traveling up and down the east coast and to some of the towns just inland from there. One of the best was Oliena where we happened upon the cantina that Aurelio had recommended and stopped for a tasting of some excellent and powerful red wines. We HAD to buy a couple bottles to bring home and one to drink later in the trip. The east coast is incredibly mountainous and we did some of the twistiest driving EVER. The old bandit capital of Sardinia is Orgosolo, high n the mountains where there used to be daily murders and kidnappings until about the 1950's. Now just a peaceful little town where there are murals on just about every wall space in the city.

Quite impressive.

On one of our drives high up in the mountains, we stopped for lunch in a town called Gavoi (another Aurelio restaurant recommendation) and found that they were having a "festa" to celebrate San Gavino, whoever he is. It involved lots of good looking young men on horseback all over the town. Both the men and the horse were quite decked out. We went to the Aurelio recommended restaurant and had yet another fantastic lunch.

The next day took us to some more twisty mountain roads but also the beaches below. Truly these roads have been incredibly demanding driving but lots of fun in our little poorly powered Fiat Punto. That night we had a real rip roaring thunder and lightening storm. We waited for a break in the storm and went our for our first pizza! I also tried another Sardinian traditional pasta called "culurgiones", a kind of ravioli-ish thing filled with potato flavored with mint and cheese and with a tomato sauce on top with more pecorino grated on top. Yummy....I could eat those many more times!

The next day we meandered our way back to Cagliari to the Holiday Inn so that we would be close to the airport for our early AM flight to Rome. On the way we stopped at a salt pond where flamingos were staying as part of their migration route to Africa.

Sardinia was a great success. I'd come back again. We drove about 920 miles during the one week we were there and there was much left to see!