With the memory of our
idyllic beachside stop on our last night on Corsica still fresh in our minds,
we were keen to explore Sardinia’s potential for a similar treat. Back in the
days before apps could be used to help find a good spot to free camp (indeed
pre-internet!), we just used to go with our instinct and a bit of map reading
to find a likely location. So, armed with our Campercontact app and a bit of map reading, we headed off
to the Stintino peninsula knowing that there were two possible spots at least…
Of course, what we were soon
reminded of is that there’s free camping, and ‘free camping’! What we were
looking for was somewhere quiet, near the sea and unlikely to be moved on by
the local uniforms, maybe with a couple of other vans around. What we found was
a hot and dusty car park, with vans cheek-by-jowl, adjacent to a private lido
on the beach and access to an admittedly beautiful beach, some way off! Admittedly
free of charge, it wasn’t quite what we were looking for, so, undeterred, we
went to look at the next place, noting the increasing amount of villas lining
the coastline as we neared the top of the peninsula…
What we found was another
car park, this time with no direct views of the sea or islands and surrounded
by signs banning campervans. The views where you could get them were amazing –
but we had to pop into a private car park to take these, so realising that even
instinct and new technology can be fallible, we cut loose on finding our
idyllic spot on the peninsula and headed off further south instead to an
abandoned silver mine at the end of a deserted road…or so our Rough Guide led
us to believe…
After perhaps just a little
bit too long at the wheel, heading towards the sea on what looked to be a dead
end road, we spotted a campervan pulled in to a small carpark by a bar at the
back of a lovely small cove, and although short of where we thought we were
heading, we pulled over to have a look. It didn’t take long to realise that
this would be ideal, especially by the time the cars and day trippers had left.
So, without further ado, we fell into beach bum mode and spent an enjoyable
latter part of the afternoon lazing in the sun, knowing that our hot showers
were waiting with an ideal spot to dispose of the water.
As we guessed, the car park
soon emptied out and apart from a guy strangely taping up the wooden boundary
posts with green marker tape, all seemed to be fine for a night at what we had
discovered was actually the place we were heading for on the Campercontact app,
but just misnamed by us – we were in Porto Palmas, rather than Argentiera.
As we walked about the near
empty car park looking for the ideal level spot to spend the night now that
most of the cars had gone, we noticed a stream of cars, 4x4s and a couple of
campers, heading back and forth on a rough dirt track behind us. A quick look
over a small hill that the track lead up revealed what looked like an even
better place to spend the night, overlooking the sea as it did and away from
the bar adjacent to the parking area.
And before long we had
pulled in by two other campers with one of the best overnight spots we’ve had
in a long time. There were tracks leading further up the coast if we’d wanted
to be even more isolated, but we decided this spot was just fine and with the
sun dropping towards the sea, we enjoyed a lovely dinner from our own private
room with a view – quickly followed by a restful night with the waves breaking
in the cove below.
Morning brought with it a
fine sunny day – and – a surprising amount of vehicle activity, including 4x4s
with numbers on their doors, lots more marker taping, a scaffolded view point
higher up the hill under construction, and a few people in fluo jackets
apparently stopping vehicles as they went back the way we needed to go to get
back to the road…
Slightly anxious that we
might have fallen foul of some sort of ‘corralling and fining’ of free campers
(Mr B had once been marshalled into a ‘holding zone’ with lots of other campers
by the Guardia Civil in southern Spain) we decided we’d better go and talk to
one of the fluo jackets and find out what was happening.
After a very pleasant chat
with what turned out to be a Marshal for the Italia/Sardegna 2018 rally (!!),
we found out that we had only gone and chosen a site that, by the coming
weekend, would be one of the official stages of the rally and that we would
indeed have been moved on! The chat with the Marshal (mostly in Spanish as she
spoke little English and Mr B’s Italian is limited) also revealed that free
camping on beaches in Sardinia is generally tolerated for one night at a time,
so long as there are no obvious restrictions in force or invasions of anyone’s
privacy – hurrah!
And so, after bidding farewell
to our friendly official, we set off in search of that abandoned silver mine
we’d been promised in Argentiera…
S&J
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