For the last few days of Dustin and Nicole’s visit we decided to hit the beach. Sardegna (or Sardinia in English) is a large island off the west knee of Italy. We took an overnight ferry ride to get there and let me tell you, it was the ride of a lifetime due to a little wind. The boat was almost as big as a cruise ship and it was tossing and turning like a row boat. None of us dared go outside to look, we all just laid in our beds wondering if we would see another day. But we survived! Here we are ready to get off the boat…
We headed first for the famous Emerald coast. And it was beautiful. White sandy beaches and crystal clear blue water. In my mind when I think of beaches, I think tropical and palm trees. But Sardegna was quite different in that way, it was desert. You would never guess the beaches would be so beautiful when you are exploring inland.
The next day we rented a big blow up boat and Captain Dustin took us around the gulf of Orosei exploring the beautiful caves, cliffs and beaches there that are only accessible by boat or crazy hikes.
We had some difficulties with the anchor, while I investigated Nicole decided to take some photos…
There were a lot of jellyfish in the water, mostly out away from the shore thank goodness. But other than the jellyfish and a few little fish, there wasn’t really much to see. We snorkeled some, but there wasn’t much there. Just clear beautiful water.
We had an interesting experience with a B&B that we were supposed to stay at…Sardegna was settled by Spain for awhile so while they do speak Italian it is sort of a Spanish dialect of Italian and the old people were especially difficult to understand. When we arrived at our B&B it was just this crazy old lady who the only thing I could understand her say was “you don’t understand me, do you?” We were supposed to wait for someone else to come and meanwhile we awkwardly stood with this crazy lady so we decided to just leave and find somewhere else to stay. I felt bad about it, but sometimes language barriers can make things a bit uncomfortable and we were all tired and I think we had just had enough.
We found a cute little city on top of a pointy mountain capped by a castle. It was really fun to wander the little streets.
Sardegnans identify themselves first as “Sarde” and then as “Italian”. One of them told me that they love where they are from and when I said that all Italians say the very same thing, he responded “but we love it more.” And they do seem to. They have a different culture and therefore a different food. Lot’s of seafood and a weird bread that looks and kind of tastes like cardboard…
On the last day there, it was a bit windy and cold. So we went to Porto Cervo to check out the fancy yachts. This here yacht is one of the biggest in the world and is owned by some Russian dude…
Then we went and explored Olbia before boarding our ferry back to Italy. Olbia was interesting (I didn’t get any photos apparently, but it was kind of a seedy city)…here we are in the parking lot making some dinner. Yes, we do this everywhere we go (ask anyone that has come to visit). Yes, I know it makes us look homeless.
