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Thursday 28 June 2018

Ancient Tharros, Nuraghic Giants, Bottarga and on to Marina di Torre Grande, near Oristano (12th - 14th June)


Glad to be leaving the insect life of Is Aruttas behind, but not the fabulous beach and low key campsite, we meandered down the coast to see what had also brought us to the Sinis peninsula, the ruins of the Punic-Roman town of Tharros.

Arriving earlier than the coach tours we knew would be coming, we were lucky to be able to wander around the ruins of what was originally a Phoenician port from as early as 800BCE, followed by subsequent conquest by the Carthaginians and then the Romans, who left behind most of what is still visible today. There’s enough to get a sense of the town, with the outline of roads and buildings clear to see, helped by the reconstructed temple columns and some ‘patching up’! Much of the ancient town lies under the sea nearby, and divers regularly add to the site’s finds.



As much as we enjoyed the wander round the site, as the temperature rose, we were grateful to climb to the nearby Spanish tower from the 1500s where we were greeted by a cooling breeze and some amazing views back up the coast and to the end of the peninsula at Capo san Marco. You can get to visit the inside and go to the top of the tower, but unfortunately for us, it was being repaired!



As we walked back to the van from the Spanish tower we also stumbled upon this intriguing church, although we couldn’t find any information about it!



Mrs B had read of a museum not far from Tharros in Cabras, that, as well as housing a broader history of the area, was home to some of the ‘Giganti di Mont’e Prama’ – the lovingly restored (from 1000s of fragments) nuraghic statues of archers, warriors and boxers (some up to 2.5m tall) from between 900 and 1200BCE. Having been impressed by the amazing tower complex we had seen at Santu Àntine, we were stunned into an astonished silence to see these figures with their enigmatic faces and postures, staring back at us across the centuries.



Mr B was also taken by the finds from a Roman cargo ship from the 1st Century BCE, that had sunk in the nearby bay off the island of Mal di Ventre, including about 1000 lead ingots and the lead parts of the anchors. Intriguingly, the lead has been shown to have come from mines in Cartagena in Spain!



Spotting a regional supermarket near where we had parked the van, we topped up on our usual supplies and treated ourselves to a small piece of bottarga, the smoked roe from mullet in the adjacent lagoon. With the brand translated as ‘Cabras Gold’ we hope it’s as good as it promises – at €130 a kilo it better had be – and we understand that a little goes a long way!

We’d already decided to try a campsite not far from Cabras, so after enjoying a morning of culture, we decided it was time for lunch, so why not check in early at the site in Marina di Torre Grande and have lunch on the beach…

What we hadn’t reckoned on was a rather longer-than-is-usual siesta at camping Spinnaker, with the reception closed between 12.30 and 3.30! So instead of checking in, we drove up the coast a short distance and made lunch at a pretty deserted beach, ideal for a free overnight camp if Spinnaker didn’t take our fancy.



Once we’d had a chance to check the site out though, we decided that its combination of pool and beachside location would do, and we had a free choice of pitches in amongst the pines and eucalyptus (except for a zone set aside for a large group of campers from the Netherlands arriving later that day!) With enough time left in the day for a spot of relaxing, we had the site’s private sun loungers and brollies all to ourselves as we enjoyed our beachside aperos!




The beach was not as pretty as some we had enjoyed, with the water more like the English channel than the Med, no doubt the product of being in a large bay that housed a major industrial port! Still, we had high hopes of a couple of days busy doing not much…

But we’d reckoned without the very strong wind coming off the sea – sandblasting strength – and the profusion of exuberant mosquitoes that seemed as happy to be out in the day as the night, and clearly didn’t know they weren’t meant to fly in strong winds!

So, after filling the water tank and getting the van ready for a possible bit of free camping, we headed south-west into the province of Carbónia-Iglésias to do some exploring!

S&J


A drive down the coast to the Quartz (aka Earwig) Beach on the Sinis Peninsula! (9th - 12th June)


Leaving the delights of Alghero behind we set off along the truly spectacular coastal drive that led south. Noting the similarities with parts of the Croatian coast we had marvelled at last year, we were soon passing one stunning view after another.



We eventually turned inland and found ourselves in the delightful little town of Bosa, with its pastel coloured houses, wide, navigable river and watched over by its medieaval castle. It’s currently low key and tranquil, but that’s probably not likely to last with the new coastal marina pulling in tourists in larger numbers.



The drive onwards took us further inland, with the by now usual series of changing and picturesque views helping to pass the time until we reached the northern end of the Sinis peninsular. One of the least developed parts of Sardinia, we were looking forward to our stop at camping Is Aruttas, set back from the beach and with direct access.

Situated in a national park, this beach is astonishingly beautiful; an arc of white quartz sand punctuated by rocky promontories. There's not much around here apart from dirt tracks that run along a succession of bays, with car parks attached to the two beach bars. It's incredibly popular with locals, especially at the weekends, so what appears to be a fairly deserted area is heaving with sunshades once you arrive at the beach!



This strip is also popular with freecampers, and gets a mention on our Campercontact app. The pay parking areas weren't in operation when we were here in mid June and we did wonder how they'd work as they were app driven, and there was little or no mobile reception in the area.

We stayed at Is Aruttas camping, the only campsite along this stretch, and some 10k+ away from the nearest shop. Wifi was via a microwave transmitter to a mast some distance away, there was no mobile network at all, and all the sanitary block water was desalinated onsite, with just one tap to fill up with drinking water.

The site itself is a hotchpotch of old and new, maintained and a little bit neglected in parts, but we had a fab pitch with views across to the coast, venturing in where other big motorhomes might not, under low branches, and so settled in quite happily.



The ACSI reviews of the site were mixed, in that some campers clearly loathed the locals’ permanent pitches, whilst others, including us, were more interested in the location! We felt that the site reflected the classic tension between pitches that look neglected before their owners return for the season, whilst others look pristine. One thing permanents in any state of repair do bring, is a sense of the local community, and many were occupied by families at the weekend, lending the site a more Italian air.



The area is also a wildlife haven to the six legged variety, and there were bugs of every hue to pester us on the campsite and at the beach, including iridescent little flies that liked to settle on sunbathers, causing much slapping and fidgeting during the day, and mosquitoes that had the same effect in the evening. Cue the 50% deet spray, mosquito coils and citronella lamp as soon as we arrived back at the van in the evenings!

Most persistent though were the earwigs, who managed to stow away in every crevice imaginable and who travelled with us for the next couple of sites, falling out of the electrical cable roll, the arms of the folding chairs and the wheel arches as we stopped to unpack. We counted about 50 on our first stop! Luckily the invasion was predominantly in the boot storage.

We wouldn't have missed this area though, just letting the sand run through your fingers was a treat in itself and when the breezes came the flies went and the only wildlife were grasshoppers springing ahead as we walked back across the scrubland to the van.

After a few days of near bliss (save Mrs B’s multiple insect bites) we set off on the short hop to Tharros and its famous Roman ruins just down the coast…

J&S

Sunday 24 June 2018

Alghero, a banquet, some cheeky Catalan, and the Italia/Sardegna rally…again! (7th - 9th June)


           
The brief trip south from fascist Fertilia to marvellous camping Mariposa was in step with the improving weather, and as we pulled into the campsite for one of our earliest ever check-ins, we were pleased to discover that we could have any pitch of our choice, including those on the front line that perched over the sea, poised as they were on a low promontory overlooking the bay towards old Alghero and its citadel.



Our old friend Posidonia had also travelled with us and as a storm blew in across the bay later that day, we could see more weed gathering, waiting to join the earlier dumps that had made it ashore… Looking a little like a rocky shoreline until you realise its actually stacked weed. As we were to discover, Alghero was having a particularly hard time from its marine life and the stormy weather…




After the storm had blown over we took our first walk into the town to have a look around, noting the difference between the reality of a lido on an overcast day, and its poster version…




And it didn’t take long before we could see the full extent of what a visit from Posidonia can look like on what would otherwise be a clean and sandy beach…



As we neared the town we could hear the sound of music drifting on the wind, as well as the roar of well-tuned race engines…? Yup, you guessed it, we’d fetched up at the headquarters of the Italia/Sardegna rally and as well as a fascinating range of street food sellers, we were treated to a long line of manufacturer/race teams’ mobile workshops, the cars being presented (with their drivers) on a podium, and, of course, a display of the various facets of contemporary Italian policing and its reputation for restraint…







What wasn’t on show for the rally, and something we found interesting and a little amusing, is that the Italians also have a branch of their policing dedicated to more low-key affairs that includes monitoring the distance between the sunbeds and umbrellas in the lido concessions to ensure they are accurate – and this explains why we had seen much use of tape measures when we saw lidos being set up for the season!

Deciding that we’d need to come back and make a full day of exploring Alghero and the rally, we headed back in time for the weather to end on a sunny note and we enjoyed a sunset dinner, overlooking the bay and the old town.



The next day saw us heading into town again to explore the back streets, as well as some of the more obvious tourist treats. Founded by the Genoese in the 1100s and subsequently captured by the Spanish in the 1300s, the local Sards were expelled and replaced by Catalans, giving rise to the distinctive Spanish feel that can still be found.

After a fabulous couple of hours enjoying the architecture of the old town, the quirky decorations, the posters depicting lots of Italian centenarians and being blown around its walls by the strong island breezes to which we were becoming accustomed, we had a go at tracking down a restaurant we fancied trying later that evening. It was closed when we eventually did (for obvious reasons when we saw its marketing strap-line later!) so we opted for lunch in a proper tourist-trap place overlooking the bay and enjoyed a lush lunch under blue skies with a fabulous view!




By the time we’d walked back to the van we’d had a proper stretch and, not ones to be easily put off, we decided to have a go at booking a table at Mabrouk, the restaurant we’d tried to find at lunchtime. Reading more about it (only fish, only fresh, only in the evening) Mr B managed to book a table later that night (luckily, his limited Italian covers this!) and so with a good deal of excitement, we wandered back into town, working up a good appetite by the time we arrived for our 8.00 booking.

And it was just as well we’d booked, as the place was packed, with a continuous stream of people turned away at the door (except, of course, this being Italy, a very well groomed and important looking couple who were suddenly found a table!) The menu is easy to negotiate; nine seafood courses, with no choice (except for dessert) as it all depends on what’s been landed that day, served with pitchers of wine (replaced as soon as each one is finished) and limoncello to finish. This is wonderful food, cooked with love and at €40 a head, outstanding value. If you ever find yourself in Alghero and you love seafood, it’s a must! (You may need to be patient for links to load from the blog!)

Apart from the amazing food, we also picked up some rude Catalan, as in this part of Sardinia it’s still spoken after a fashion, and, whilst the front of house staff at Mabrouk were wearing the company provided T-shirt with the ‘solo pesce, solo fresco, solo la sera’ branding, we spotted the behind the scenes staff with their Catalan alternative ‘s’ull al cul’ which Google translate will tell you is a worker’s retort if ever there was one!

By the time we’d finished, darkness had fallen and we were treated to a very lively and vibrant celebration of rally culture as we watched the concourse turn into an outdoor disco…



with the cars waiting to make another star turn on the podium;



the nightime life of a rally mechanic (not only under the gaze of a passing public but with a green neon clock giving them the count down to when they must be finished by – 0605) …



and we also discovered that the place where we’d first come across the rally at our free camp near Argentiera, was in fact one of the final stages on the coming Sunday! So, here’s a short clip of the Argentiera stage – and you can make out where we were camped behind the dust of the racing cars!

We really enjoyed our time in Alghero for lots of obvious reasons mentioned above, but worthy of particular note is the fact that the town provides a free WiFi hotspot for its citizens, and that our magic gadget – iBoost, as mentioned in an earlier blog entry (see below) enabled us to pick up a signal across the water from over a kilometre away and catch up with lots of email and inter-webbing!



Waking early the next day (yup – that 0605 rally start!) we realised that the time had come for us to head off again and enjoy more of Sardinia, this time heading for an exotic part of the west coast, famous for its ‘quartz beach’…

S&J



Thursday 21 June 2018

Of silver mines, churches, Nuraghi – and what happens if you pack too much into one day… (6th - 7th June)

 As part of the rationale for our trip out into the wilderness of the west coast was to see the deserted silver mine at Argentiera, we decided to leave our soon-to-be rally site and head off down the road to nowhere to see if the mine really existed. Before long we rounded a bend and could see that it did indeed exist, and that the small town was a mix of renovated houses and bars as well as the deserted mine itself.



We parked up at what was literally the end of the road, and started to wander about, soaking up the atmosphere of dereliction but not abandonment, as some people were clearly intent on making a go of the touristic potential. We’d read that a museum was promised at some point in the future, but all we could see were the old workings with what looked like glassed-in/blocked off parts, we assumed, for safety reasons.



And then we spotted four people going into one of the apparently abandoned and blocked off buildings, so, not wanting to miss out on the chance of a peek inside, we started chatting to them (after a fashion and in Mr B’s limited Italian). It turned out that they were local officials from the municipality at Sàssari and they invited us in for our own private tour! They were inspecting the buildings for damage and security, as there were still plans for a museum but at the moment, it only gets opened for a brief display in May – which we’d missed.

Dispelling the myth that silver had been mined until 1963 when the workings closed (we’d thought it was a silver mine based on our Rough Guide) we discovered that it had originally been a silver mine in Roman times, but more recently it was used for extracting lead and zinc, with most of what we were being shown around the ‘crunching and cleaning’ area before the minerals were shipped off for processing from the very small harbour in the bay.



Thanking our hosts for letting us have a look inside as they wound up their inspection visit, we reflected on the likelihood of that happening back in the UK, or not! As we wandered around the rest of the village we could see signs of investment in some of the infrastructure to support more tourism (car parks, walkways, repaired seawall etc) but it looked very much like the money had run out and an air of neglect was already creeping over the village again.



Marvelling at our good luck (and that it was still early enough in the day for us to plan some more exploration en route to our as yet unplanned stopping point further down the coast), we set off to visit the church of Santíssima Trinità di Saccargia, famous for its zebra-striped construction using basalt and limestone. The roads on Sardinia are of a very good standard and it didn’t take too long before we could see the church looming in the distance. Unfortunately, the weather had closed in and what had looked like a dazzling image of contrasting colours in the pictures we’d seen, was transposed into an almost monochrome portrait as the clouds added a sombre backdrop.



The church, built in 1116 by a local noble, allegedly after a celestial visitation en route to a nearby city (and hence its location in the middle of nowhere), is famous not only for its use of the construction materials, but also for the fresco from the 11th or 12th century.



Taking advantage of the low visitor count on our visit, we made use of the Sard people’s willingness to chat in Spanish if they don’t speak English and managed to get an explanation from the person in the gift shop as to why we had seen many Sardninian flags with heads facing left, as well as facing right. Similar to the Corsican flag of the Moorish head with a bandana, we’d assumed that it was perhaps just a bit of slack quality control.



We were soon put right though and learnt that the official one has the bandana and face pointing right, whilst the one associated with Sardinian independence is a blindfolded head facing left. Embarrassingly, we’d not spotted the swapping of a bandana for a blindfold!

As Mr B was keen on another free camp, this time on the Capo Caccia peninsula, we realised we could also fit in a visit to the famous Nuraghi complex at Santu Antine, near Torralba. It’s one of the three Nuraghic sites that our guide had identified as ‘the best’ (not sure what happened at the editing stage!) As we pulled up into the roadside car park opposite a very impressive tower like structure, there were few other people about, so we decided to have a quick cuppa first. Big mistake, as before we’d even had time to read the tealeaves, three coaches had pulled up and disgorged loads of people…



Sardinia is dotted/littered with Nuraghic sites, some just hummocks of grassed over boulders, some just piles of boulders, but some, like Santu Antine, very easy to sense the majestic scale of the original as its main tower, which, although reduced in height, still dominates the landscape.



Influencing the much smaller in scale menhir culture of Corsica, the Nuraghi were the dominant culture on Sardinia between 1900 and 900 BCE, surviving into the 3rd century AD, as their customs and buildings were absorbed into the Phoenician, Carthaginian and eventually Roman empires. Our time in the Santu Antine site was very atmospheric, as the coach parties were in and out in no time and we had a chance to savour the passing centuries by waiting for each batch of coach travellers to return to their vehicles.



The drive back to the coast and Capo Caccia was very picturesque, with the landscape changing in that Sardinian style we were getting accustomed to. It was also very twisty, turny and slow, and so by the time we reached the beginning of the peninsula, it might have been a bit later than anticipated. Having seen pictures of free camping sites from a blogger who had over-wintered on the island and waxed lyrical about Capo Caccia, we were confident of a quick and easy result…

It was only after Mrs B had extracted the van from yet another lane too narrow to go down, and one or two words might have been exchanged about the likelihood of finding anywhere before darkness fell, that looking for a site in what is essentially a national park (with attendant prohibitions on camping) was abandoned in favour of a nearby campsite en route to our next stop in Alghero.

And so it was that we cruised into another of Mussolini’s purpose-built ‘improvement’ towns, Fertilia, looking for the Laguna Blu campsite ‘idyllically located between a lagoon and the sea…’

Our view of an idyll was clearly different however, and after a night shared with the gentle hum of mosquitoes and traffic on the nearby road, and with clouds gathering and rain falling, (and without our customary ‘pitch picture’ to remind us where we’d been) we called it a day, and, after a quick visit to look at Il Duce’s nearby handiwork (obviously best viewed with a lowering sky), we drove on the next morning to a site right on the outskirts of Alghero, Mariposa, promising to each other not to try to pack too much into one day in the future…



S&J