Sardinian Secret (Sardinia)

Member Name: jo@145

Product:	Sardinia
Date:	24/05/05 (4683 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Spectacular scenery, Lovely weather, Warm sea

Disadvantages: Can be expensive, Limited flights

Listen, do you want to know a secret? Do you promise not to tell? (Hope you’re singing along with me!)
I don’t usually tell my secrets but this is so special I want to share it.

Holidays. We do need then now and again, and we were really looking forward to visiting Sardinia when BANG, the airline ran into problems and folded and we had to cancel the holiday as there wasn’t another suitable flight. Fortunately we had four months to arrange an alternative and after much pouring over travel brochures and browsing the net we decided to book our own flights through Lastminute.com (if interested in their services see my review!)and stay at an apartment through our timeshare. By flying from Edinburgh to Birmingham, then to Rome we eventually reached our destination of Olbia on the East coast of Sardinia. We enjoyed a day of “people watching” so it didn’t seem as long as we had originally feared.

I hear you asking, where is Sardinia? If you think of Italy and can imagine where Rome is, go to the west and slightly south, across the Tyrrhenian Sea and there it is below a smaller island called Corsica which belongs to France. Sardinia is almost rectangular in shape but with a jagged coastline, and it is much bigger than I had first imagined! The coastline stretches for approximately 1,800 kilometres and the surface area is over 23,000 sq. kilometres so this review only covers a small part of this beautiful island, and that is the north and mostly the north east in the area called Gallura. It is divided into 16 sub-regions and these come under four provinces called Cagliari, Sassari, Nuoro and Oristano.

The plane flew over some really rugged mountainous regions, I was amazed how little houses clung precariously on the mountainside, and I was more horrified at the narrow roads and the prospect of my husband driving us to our destination! But the beautiful sea and beaches gleamed and sparkled up at me in the early evening sunlight and I couldn’t wait to land and start this Sardinian holiday.

The first thing that hit me was the heat! The plane was slightly late and it was by then 5.30pm but still 30 degrees, as we had left home at 4.30am on a dark wet morning this was quite a change! Cases collected, we found the car hire firm and set off for the Costa Smeralda. Easier said than done! OK, so my map reading needs some work on it! But to be fair the map we were given with the car was for the south of the island, and did not even have Olbia on it! I knew the road number, but discovered we were headed in the opposite direction! We turned round and tried again, no joy, third time lucky we realised (that is the Royal “WE”!) that we did in fact head in the wrong direction and then have to turn off! Fortunately we did have another map which I fished out of our hand luggage and we began our “Colin Macrae” rally driving experience! We discovered some fantastic double bends on steep hills so my husband soon became accustomed to the car and eventually after passing the outskirts of Port Cervo we reached our destination of Liscia di Vacca.

Checking in to the apartment was fun as not much English was spoken by the receptionist, and we had never been to Italy before! But I had been studying my Italian phrase book and we got by. They had run out of English information sheets and so we had to try and translate the Italian version! But we found our home for the week and quickly settled in. After a quick visit to the supermarket back in the village for basics to last the weekend we changed and went for a meal in the Pizzeria. After wonderful pizza and local wine sitting outside in the balmy evening overlooking the sea, we wandered hand in hand back to our villa. Romantic you think? No I needed a hand getting back up the really steep hill! Sardinia is really mountainous!

Next morning after breakfast on the patio, we set off to explore and walked along the beach, paddled in the beautifully clear sea and discovered the surrounding area. As the sun got hotter we returned to sit and relax until lunch time. After lunch and a wee siesta we set off in the car along the coast to Baia Sardinia. The many restaurants still had lots of people relaxing after a late lunch. This seemed rather like a purpose built holiday town and had lots of hotels and designer type shops, so as we wanted to discover the “real” Sardinia we continued along the coast stopping to admire the view if we could find somewhere suitable and walked around a sleepy little place called Cannigone which had lots of small boats and lovely scenery, then a trip across some barren countryside got us back safely, my map reading had improved tremendously!

The Costa Smeralda literally means the Emerald coast and was transformed as a holiday paradise for people with money, by the multi millionaire Karim Aga Khan. Other developers were then allowed to build and this resulted in many holiday resorts/timeshare style areas being built. I have to say although we are not rich there were obviously people who were, but he certainly discovered a fantastic area with wonderful beaches and the sea was so clean we could see the fish swimming around us as we enjoyed the lovely warm water. Sadly although the beaches have sun beds and umbrellas, showers and even changing huts, they never seem to have a toilet, so you had to find a café with one! Male mind informed me that is why the water is so clear and un-polluted, because if there were toilets at beach level it would have to go into the sea.

Porto Cervo was just a few kilometres away, and with our trusty guide book we found some parking near the beautiful and unusual shaped church. This reminded me of a new area that has been built in Malta with expensive hotels and shops and a marina full of expensive boats. The church was called Stella Maris and was the home of a beautiful painting by El Greco called Mater Dolorosa. Well we certainly enjoyed looking at the boats, seeing vans coming in and carrying trays of beautiful fresh fruits and other produce, immaculate dressed staff cleaning already clean boats for their rich owners. The Rolex yacht race was on and they were preparing to go out so it was a hive of activity. Another day we saw the start of the race, but we were on top of a rock at the time several miles away! I only window shopped here as I hadn’t got enough spending money to buy anything in Cartier or Armani! But there was a supermarket mixed in with all the smart shops which I found amusing but as we didn’t want to carry food around we didn’t check it out. There are golf courses and tennis courts for the energetic but we found it was a place to sit and enjoy an over priced coffee and watch the world go by. Porto Cervo seen we then turned our backs on the “beautiful people” and again went to find the real Sardinia.

From our apartment we could see the Isola Caprera so another day we headed north to get a better view. Along with Isola Maddalena visits can be made by ferry, but we couldn’t manage to park in Palau to check out times and suddenly found ourselves in the port and being waved on towards the boat, so like the cars in front we tried to explain we were passing through and managed to drive out the other side! Perhaps we’ll get there another time. Garibaldi lived on Caprera for some time and there is a museum which is popular with Italians.

We drove on through wonderful rock formations and tree and shrub lands to Santa Teresa di Gallura, although to us it was a small town it actually was a little city and is the most northerly community in Sardinia. We visited the remains of the nuraghi and climbed up to enjoy the view, it was a pleasant town with a small beach on one side and people were all busy going about there daily lives. As it was a bit early for lunch we drove on down the west coast called the Costa Paradiso and headed for Isola Rossa which had been were we had originally booked our hotel. We left the main road at Trinita d’Agultu and drove 6 kilometres down a winding road to reach Isola Rossa. We never did find the hotel! But after walking along the esplanade we stopped in a Pizzeria and had a leisurely lunch in the shade overlooking the sea. This little town had a few shops and lots of cafes and seemed a typical seaside town. The hotels were further up the hill and seemed to have steps down to the beach. We were glad we had not ended up here as we probably would not have hired a car and got out and about as it did seem a bit off the beaten track, so something good came out of the cancellation.

On our way back through Tempio Pausania we admired some fantastic rock formations. This is the main town of the Gallura region and an important centre for the cork industry. There is a wonderful pine forest here and nearby are thermal springs, as these have diuretic properties we gave it a miss! Almost three quarters of Sardinia’s surface is covered with rock dating back to the Palaeozoic era. I am not a geologist but this would be a place of interest for them. Where layers of crystalline slate have eroded the granite emerges and this gets weathered by rain and wind and forms the most fantastic shapes I have ever seen. When the Alps were formed and there was a lot of movement Sardinia and Corsica were thrust away from the main land, the island was so stretched and pulled and a gigantic rift emerged which runs through the entire island. I was amazed at how many woody plants were growing even at heights of around 800metres, where the soil is acid there are lots of cork oak trees and the cork products are available in local shops. Oak trees of different sorts grow all over the island, as do olive trees and fig trees and there is a lot of shrub woodland which grows up to 5 metres and is called “macchia”. Although I understand we didn’t visit at the best time to see lots of flowers we did however notice heather and little rock roses and other flowers which I did not recognise. We didn’t touch the huge flowering cactus or prickly pear for obvious reasons!

In the eastern half of Sardinia granite is very prominent. We decided to visit the famous Bear Rock, it is found near Capo d’Orso, there is a charge for the car park but it wasn’t expensive. The climb up to it has been made easier in a very sympathetic way and fits in well. These so called sculptures formed by weathering are called Tafoni. Some are more mushroom shaped and these are called fungo. Traditionally shepherds used the natural shelters for protection from the sun or the rain. Although it was a 200ft climb it was worth the effort even with the sun blazing down.

I did not enjoy History at school but have to admit I quite like finding out about things when we are visiting places so on this holiday I found out about the Nuragic culture, named after the round towers or “nuraghi” built from huge stone blocks. This was between 1500-500BC. These were built in prominent places to deter potential aggressors. We decided to have a morning visiting several of these in the area around Arzachena. This is the historical municipal town of the sub-region Gallura. It is a fertile area and farming of cereals and vines are popular here. They are managed by the local council and you pay to visit, you can buy a ticket for each one individually or it is cheaper to buy a ticket to visit up to 5 of the tombs. It was a few euros for each one, but as it was hard to find anywhere to park for the one, they certainly had the right idea as many people drove off without stopping! We visited the Tomba dei Giganti Coddu Vecchiu – the Giants tomb, legend has it that giants with supernatural powers built the nuraghi and buried their dead there. I cannot imagine how people so long ago raised stones as large as these without mechanical devices! Another was called the Necropolis of Li Muri this had several rectangular tombs and encircled by smaller stone slabs and Tomba dei Giganti li Lolghi, an edge had been cut into the stone as was described as a masterpiece of its time.

Food and wine obviously plays an important part in anyone’s holiday. As our resort was a few kilometres from Liscia di Vacca, and my husband was driving during the day we intended to use the restaurant and Pizzeria at the resort so we could enjoy a bottle of wine. Sadly only the Pizzeria was open, although the resort is open all year, so we didn’t have a choice of places to eat, it appeared to be the end of the Italian holidays and all but one of the little shops were also closed. But they had lovely pizza’s and pasta dishes and fresh fish and grilled meats were also available. The mixed fish was superb with crayfish, octopus and cuttle fish to name a few, the Sea Bass we had one evening was absolutely delicious. I enjoyed all the wines which we sampled, and although we brought some back it never tastes the same without the warm sun! There were all sorts of different breads, the most famous is “pane karasau” meaning become hard, it is a wafer thin round slice and the shepherds used to take this with them as it keeps for weeks. Warmed up and served with a few drops of olive oil it goes well with a glass of wine as you wait for your meal! Eating out was expensive even in the pizzeria! Pasta starter for one, bread, selection of grilled fish and a dolce sardi (sweet of the day) plus wine, water and coffee was over 80 Euros, pizza started at about 6 euros. So one day we bought some of the local gnocchetti sardi which is baby pasta shells and along with a jar of tomato sauce and some ham and local cheeses I cooked dinner, a simple starter and heavenly almond cake along with some well chilled wine completed my simple meal at about an eighth of the cost! The local cheeses are very tasty and come from soft fresh cheese to the harder varieties. Supermarkets are well stocked with all produce, and we purchased some tasty savouries for lunch time. We of course sampled the delicious ice cream, it was hard which to choose, my favourite was a mocha coffee concoction, although the peach sorbet was very refreshing!

I have mentioned the temperature in September was 30 degrees, on our last morning I woke at 5.30am something was banging, the shutter had become loose and I discovered it was thundering. The storm lasted for several hours and when we ventured in the afternoon, once the rain and lightening had stopped, the roads were littered with rocks which had washed down the hillside! It was quite a storm! Fortunately the power was only off for a short time.

Well, that’s my Sardinian secret out. We didn’t hear an English voice until the end of our holiday, which made us feel we really were in a foreign country. It made us try the language and everyone was so friendly and helped us with the pronunciation it was well worth the effort, a few buon journo, per favore, and grazie certainly helps. It isn’t easy to get to Sardinia unless you live in the south of England, or can get easily to Rome and it is an expensive destination, although I accept we were in an expensive tourist area, but we are going again next September, because we want to discover a bit more of the secret of Sardinia.

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