Sardinia Day 7

Cagliari

Poetto Beach

Day 7  - we leave tonight at 9pm so we drove to Cagliari and spent the day looking around the Castello quarter – old part of town and looking in the shops and enjoying lunch in the new part of town.  We had a nice siesta in the car and went down to Poetto Beach for a pre-sunset walk before heading out to the airport!  

Sardinia Day 6

Day 6 – We headed out to Chia beach which is Sardinia’s southern most tip and hired sun loungers and spent the day enjoying ourselves on the beach! Josh fancied a sunbath and turned himself into a Theodore! Although I finally got my picnic on the beach – yeah! We also saw lots of pink flamingos, which was really pretty. Night 2 in our hotel in the middle of no where we tried the second restaurant a pizzeria – defiantly cheap but no cuisine!

Walkway out to where we sat on the sun loungers.

 Josh went out for a swim.

Pink Flamingos 

 View of the beach/coast area from the viewpoint.

Sardinia Day 5

Day 5 – The sun was shining again and we had the most amazing view from the balcony where we ate breakfast, we enjoyed it so much we really took our time enjoying it. We had planned to see some ruins today but my back was really sore from all the driving and in light of the sunshine we didn’t want the extra driving time today, so we headed straight down the coast to the Southern part of Sardinia to a place called Capoterra just outside of the capital Cagliari. Well from the lovely place we stayed at the night before this place was in the middle of nowhere! We did have a supermarket so enjoyed a picnic lunch and josh enjoyed beers by the pool in the afternoon. However, when dinner came the not so nice hotel restaurant was fully booked with a tour group of Germans so we ventured out to one of the two restaurants in the area!
 Breakfast and the view

Sardinia Day 4

Day 4 – again we woke and guess what – SUNSHINE – of yeahhhhhhhh! So at 10am we went on a boat ride to the Bue Marino Grotto and saw all the formations in the cave, really amazing. We got back about 1230 and drove up through the mountains to a town called Orgosolo where we had a look at the town – really old fashioned with amazing murals painted all throughout the town, we had some lunch here before driving out the mountains and arriving in Arbatx, where we are staying the night. The hotel was like a little resort in the mountains, really pretty we had a drink by the one pool then a little nap by the other before enjoying a really nice dinner in the hotel.

Gala Gonone

Boat out to the caves

Bue Marino Grotto

Called the 'Hall of Mirrors' - check out the reflection in the water

Two of the murals in Orgosolo

Check out the cows in the road on the way up to Orgosolo

Resort in Cala Gonone - Deer walking around

One of the pools

Josh making me be silly with the water fountain!

Cocktails by the other pool

Our hotel rooms - all the rooms where from made from the rocks.

Sardinia Day 3

Capricriolli Beach

View looking out over to Gala Gonone

Day 3- again we woke up and guess what – rain!! Bet you got that one right! Anyway we drove around the costa smerelda and went to Capricriolli beach only it was raining so hard we found a private spot and ran down and took a picture before heading off. We then went to Porto Cervo – it was a whole area of beautiful beaches, really fancy (and expensive I am sure) restaurants and hotels. You could hire boats, motorbikes etc. Not that we did any of this we had to stay in the car! So we drove then down the eastern coast to Cala Gonone where we where staying the night – we had dinner in the hotel to protect from the rain and actually the dinner was really well priced and the food was great! More nursery furniture shopping and Josh downloading the papers onto his ipad so we had something to do!

Sardinia, Italy: Sunday 20th May to Saturday 26th May

Sardinia in the rain is dreadful!!! Not a good place to go when it’s not sunny at all! So we got an awful flight at 7.15am but on the bright side it was cheap! We hired a little Fiat when we arrived and drove up to Palau – just up from the Emerald coast on the north east coast. It was raining so we did a little sightseeing in the car! Then go bored and came back to the hotel, got more bored, did a little online browsing for nursery furniture and had an early night and went to bed.

Day 2 – we woke up and guess what – rain!!!! We wanted to see the beach/coast at Le Pelosa, which is the northwestern coast of Sardinia as it’s supposed to be beautiful. It took in total 5.5hrs to get there and back but since it was raining (mostly) all day it didn’t matter. We stopped in Stintino the little town before the beach for a drink then took our picnic up to the beach, went to sit down and you guessed it – RAIN! The beach was beautiful the colours really blue but when the sun peeped out you could catch a glimpse of JUST HOW MUCH MORE BEAUTIFUL IT WOULD BE IN THE SUN!!!!!!

The rain looking out over the hotel in Palau

 La Pelosa Beach

Sicily: Days 3 & 4

On Monday we headed out in the morning and drove back along the coast to the north west corner seeing some beautiful sights of Sicily along the way! With a full day of driving, not so pleasant on the pregnant stomach, actually we only went 5 minutes up the road before I had been sick all over myself in the car! After a quick wardrobe change and equipping myself with a plastic bag we set off again, only to go about 1 hour up the road before we discovered the ‘sick bag’ had holes in it and the car was wearing round 2! No wardrobe change needed this time just a quick stop at the supermarket to get some proper bags, baby wipes and kitchen towel and we set off again. We stopped along the way and saw some ruins from BC time including a temple which was really magnificent. We finally made it to the second “hotel” ( I am quoting Mike), however, when we arrive we discover that Mike’s “hotel” is inside a camp ground!!! Not impressed! Not like Mike to get things wrong but this time a definite mistake! However, we went out and walked along a really beautiful sandy beach, had dinner and I went back to my “hotel” and got an early night whilst the others had a few beers (quite exhausting vomiting all day!). That night Josh and I decided that we would lock our front door (as you do when you sleep in a campsite) only to discover in the morning that they key locked the door from the inside but did not unlock it – good thing Josh was feeling athletic as he had to jump out the window to open the front door! After a somewhat disturbing start to our last day (Tuesday) we had a great time walking along the beach and getting lunch before checking out. We where flying out of Trapani at 7.20pm and wanted to see a cute little hilltop village on the way home so we headed off at 1pm. Literally 500m away from the village a motorbike came around the corner (slowly as the corner was sharp) and crashed into our rental car (the one poor Mike was driving – again slowly due to the corner)!!! Everybody is ok the car has damage to the front panels and the tyre needs to be changed, so once this is done and insurance forms filled out (motorbike driver accepts all liability) we head up to the village and look around rather briefly for an hour as we have lost valuable time. We head off then to the airport for what is supposed to be a 30min drive 2.5 hours before the plane departs! Only problem is the car that has the accident is driving on a biscuit tyre and half way through the motorway the car decides not to make it anymore. A few quick phone calls to Europe car – nothing useful offered, Dave takes Lou, Josh and I to the airport and makes a quick turn around to go back and pick up the others whilst we try and get help from the car rental return counter – we have no luck – Dave gets lost – and we have now 1.5 hrs until the plane departs. Twenty minutes before the gate to the plane closes and Dave finally finds the others, a tow truck is on the way and Europe car is waiting with the car for the tow truck. They drive (rather fast) back to the airport, Lou, Josh and I are waiting at the gate ready to attempt to hold the gate up as long as possible in the hope they make it! The gate closure time comes just as they make it through immigration and to the gate – cutting it fine was an understatement! Anyway we all made it on the plane and back to London for 9.30pm on Tuesday night! Back to work Wednesday morning – a rather eventual day I would say! And more drama’s to come with the rental company I am sure!
Day 3: The ruins we walked around.

The temple

Some of the sights from the drive around the coast - this is the village where the American Marfia are from.

Another beautiful little private beach we spent a bit of time on - Conrad actually went swimming - even though the weather was warm, the wind was cold!  As was the water!

Day 4: The beach in the morning

Some views from the drive along the coast to the little village in the mountains.

Changing of the tyre after the accident - Josh nominated himself the supervisor!  Check out the jacket!

Conrad, Nicky, Me, Lou, Mike, Dave all at the top of the mountain.

The castle at the top of the mountain village

Views looking down before we started out mammoth trek back to the airport!