The crossing from Bonifacio to Santa Teresa de Gallura on Sardinia only took an hour and we could still easily see the distinctive white cliffs of Bonifacio from the port when we arrived in Sardinia. It was an easier drive through undulating hills to the holiday village at Cannigioni which was more like an enormous resort with a wellness centre, excellent bar and restaurant and water sports and good facilities. The bay was beautiful and it was finally warm enough to have our first swim in Europe this year on the 8th June in the crystal clear water. We stayed for two nights for the princely sum of 19euros a night which is the low season price with our camping card.
Everyone still took Maurice for a German and people to whom we spoke thought we were English until we said we were Australian to which they always ooed and aahd.
The “Costa Smeralda” coastline on the north east side of the island was was very impressive with more beautiful bays around Porto Cervo which was obviously a place for the rich and famous with the million dollar boats moored in the arinas, palacial houses around the bays and even a Rolls Royce sales office near the marina.
We chose a route along the coast to Porto Cervo and then over the heavily forested hills to Sassari and Porto Torres which was founded by Julius Caesar and where we stopped at the Antiquarium Turritana, a well established museum and archeological site of ancient Roman Baths. The guide who took us around the site only spoke Italian but a lot of explanation was not needed so Maurice and the German couple with us didn’t miss out on too much. We left the town and stopped at Alghero for
the night so that we could see the old town the next morning. Little did we realize that “Rally Sardinia” was on and there was no parking left within a few kilometres of the old town. We saw one of the new Italian police cars – it was too fast for me to take a photo – a lamborghini painted in the blue “polizia colours” – Only in Italy!
We had a coffee out of town and continued on to more stunning scenery along the coast to Ortisano or Aristanis (they seem to have kept both the Latin as well as the Italian names) a quaint old town which was of course dead during the middle of the day but which had some beautiful architecture. We travelled inland (there was no coast road for a while) along a very flat plain which was dotted with industrial areas, a large cork factory and small typical Italian villages with a few men sitting outside a bar, the only thing open from about 1-4pm.