Sardinia

This was our first real adventure as far as airports go and considering what could have gone wrong i'd say it went rather smoothly!

Our flight left from the basel airport at 8:30 am so we caught the 5:52 train to basel on wednesday morning and then took the bus from the train station to the airport no problem. The flight was a little late departing and since we were flying with Ryanair which is a discount airline, there was no assigned seating and therefore a mad rush at boarding time.

It was 27C when we arrived in Cagliari at 10ish. We rented a two door Fiat 500 for the weekend which will work out to about 45 euros per person for all transportation costs. At this point we were starving so we took the car and then followed the signs to a grocery store where we bought hearty bread, cheese and meat. Standard travel fare!

After leaving the market we got ourselves lost in Cagliari for probably about 45 minutes. It was right around lunchtime and the locals have a siesta when everything is closed that happen to fall right at that time......We finally figured it out though and headed northwest up the island.

We arrived in Bosa within about an hour and a half and had our first dip in the sea and explored what we think may have been a watch tower back in the day. This first place we stopped at wasn't a real beach and mostly was covered with volcanic rock and little seaweed but the rock had little pools in it and it was one f those pools that was my first Mediterranean swimming experience. We continued up until we arrived at a real beach and tried that out as well.

After Bosa We were headed up to Alghero where we had book our first hostel (a little north of Alghero in this sleepy little hamlet). They say that the coast road between Bosa and Alghero is on of the most Beautiful on the island and they weren't mistaken. Along the coast are small mountains which fall right into the sea. The water is emerald colored, especially when the light hits it right, and everything is covered with what looks to be lush greenery even though the climate there seems to lean towards what we saw in arizona.

Google maps failed us a little because it got us to the hamlet but then we had to fend for ourselves. after a little wandering. an old woman finally called down from her balcony to see if we were looking for the hostel...we obviously stuck out like a sore thumb! But she pointed u s in the right direction!

WE had pizza for dinner that night and it's not really worth mentioning because it really wasn't very good..

The next day we headed across the island to Olbia (slightly south of in Porto Taverna). There are vinyards and orchards all accross the island and the roads are tiny and narrow but very cute (i wasn't driving or i might have thought otherwise).

In porto Taverna, we found the most beautiful beach. It sloped gently downwards for hundreds of meters, the sand was white and completely unblemished by driftwood and the larger rocks you often find at the break point of the waves. The water was so clear that when you opened your eyes, even with the salt water, you had several meters of visibility. it was completely impossible to sneak up on anyone because they'd see you coming from a mile away.

After we got our fill of frolicking, we tried to find our hostel. It turned out to be something that reminded my a little more of a resort and the view! Wow, you could see the beautiful beach mentioned above and right offshore there were two smaller islands that lent a certain majesty to the whole scene.

Also there are these gorgeous pink and purple flowering bushes everywhere across the island and we stumbled across a marble quarry during our travels which reminded me greatly of the big white city in lord of the rings. It actually looked to be a similar color of marble as that used in the Duomo di Milano that we saw in Milan....

The next day we had booked a half day snorkeling tour in a small town called Cala Ganone which was about 2 hours south of where we were staying. we got to get all suited up in wetsuits and the took us on a bit of a boat tour along the cliffs near the town. The cliffs and the caves in them are apparently parts of caves systems that stretch for 100 km along the coast and make for great scuba diving and snorkeling. (This is Cala Ganone)

We stopped at a cave where we got to snorkel both around it and in it, the instructor brought a flashlight and showed us anemones and starfish as well as small school of other fish and shrimp type things. There were stalagmites and stalactites in the caves as well and I can quite honestly tell you that being in the dark and having the sunlight filtering through the water into the cave is one of the most beautiful things i had ever seen and is certainly etched into my memory.....

The man that took us out also brought out a dive instructor and two dive students who did there dive while we were snorkeling. Once they got back we piled back into the boat and headed to another cave where we could have done more snorkeling as another dive was happening but instead we swam and lolled on the boat pontoons like some sort of elite Mediterranean models....

Now just a side note about our tour guy. He is Italian and wore a speedo the whole time. His entire body was covered in a pelt of gold tinged hair from being out in the sun to much and as the wind whipped around when driving the boat all the hair undulated like weird sea grass..... but apart from this though, at one point he swam over to one of the cliff faces, free climbed about 25 feet using no obvious hand and foot holds and then executed at 10 point dive... we called him the spider monkey after that.

On the last day we slowly made our way back down the west coast of the island toward Cagliari, stopping for gelato and every beach we could fins. A significant stretch of the road wound it's way along the inside of a mountain range. The rods had more hair pin turns than pretty much anything that i've seen it BC. Let us simply say that i didn't feel that great afterwards....

Arriving back in Cagliari, It took us another hour and some frustration to find the airport. This is sort of our fault since we were using the old drive till you see a sign method, which has never been known for it's efficiency. We decided to forgo staying in a hostel on that last night because our flight left a 6:30 in the morning and the hostel was going to be expensive ....so we figure we got about 2 hours of sleep laying on the floor in the airport....

All in all a successful trip but i will certainly be going to be early tonight!

olivia