October 3, 2010: What Ship Are You On?

Last night we arrived in Cagliari, Sardinia after a short flight on a plane with only 24 seats and went to pick up our rental car for the next ten days. Clearly the guy who helped us was waiting for us to arrive so he could go home, so it felt a little rushed - which is never a good thing when dealing with rental car companies (even when you speak the same language).

With our snazzy black VW Golf, we started our driving adventure in Sardinia. Its a little crazy to think that originally we were going to be doing this segment of our trip on bikes - I'm not sure after this much walking and hiking that our legs could handle ten days of biking. Meanwhile, driving here isn't much easier. For starters, it was already dark out. Add to that the tiny freeway signs that are placed at the off-ramps, giving you about two milliseconds to read them and decide if it is where you should turn off. And don't foget the minor detail of not having a map, except for the small area we printed from Google maps. But miracles do happen, and we found ourselves in the town center. It took us about three loops to find our hotel (and a parking space). This included going down a narrow one-way street and squeezing through about a 6.5 foot stone archway.

We finally arrived at our hotel and then had to deal with the fact that the hotel manager spoke no English. Those Italian lessons surely paid off last night, as the guy chatted with us for about 30 minutes. He told us all the things to do in Cagliari, in Sardinia, where to eat dinner, and all the things that were available to eat for breakfast. By the time we got out the door to go to dinner it was about 10:30 PM.

Sardinia, especially on a Saturday night, is nothing like we expected. There are tons of young people out (with some serious style) and the later it got, the busier it was at the main piazza in town. We went to the hippest pizzeria we've ever been to that had a DJ playing electronica/dance music. To paint an accurate picture, I must admit that we stuck out like sore thumbs. We had just spent the day in Palermo/in an airport - we were sweaty, hungry, and wearing sneakers and sweatshirts. But at that point it didn't matter. When its 11 PM you need to eat. Period.

We went back to the hotel to get some sleep - this hotel is like the polar opposite to the one from Palermo. It's called the Art Rooms B&B, and every room has a theme artist. The whole place is simple, with style. Its like they went to MOMA to get the furnishings, and its hard to say which style I like better. This morning we got up, had a simple breakfast, and went out to explore Cagliari.

Cagliari, we both agreed, is a really cool city. Its not pretty from above, but has interesting features and a lot of greenery. Its has a young/lively vibe, but also has a lot of history, and is easy to get around even though its pretty hilly. We started our day at the botanic gardens and saw a lot of similar plants that we saw in Palermo yesterday and some natural limestone caves (they are pretty common in Sardinia) that added something new.

From there, we saw the usual assortment of churches and cathedrals, climbed a medieval tower to get panoramic views of the city, and went to visit another crypt (this time empty, luckily). We climbed up the hill to visit the castle walls and the Bastione San Remy, which provides great views and a stairway connection to the lower part of the city. On the way to the bastion, we ran into a couple who seemed lost. For some reason people just know when you speak English, and they struck up a mini-conversation with us. This couple was clearly from New York, but now they live in Miami. Imagine "so, what ship are you on?" in a whiney New York accent...Seems like Cagliari is a pitstop for lots of cruise ships and we are the odd-balls who were doing the trip on our own.

>We walked through the lower part of the city for a while (it was Sunday, so not a lot was going on, although it was the busiest place we've seen on a Sunday). Then we climbed back up the hill to check out the ruins of a Roman Amphitheater, which the city has sort of "ruined" by building over it so they could still use it as a theater today. At this point, we'd seen most of the big sites in the city and decided to get an early start on our drive to the next city we're visiting: Pula. The drive here wasn't so bad - we still desperately need to buy a good map, but our little print-out got us here without a problem. We hugged the coast for a while and also got to see some of the crazy red/orange/pink rocks that are inland.

Tonight we'll stay in Pula, a much much much smaller town that Cagliari, and tomorrow we'll leave again for another city. Since we have the car for this part of the trip, we'll be doing a lot of driving to see as much of the island as possible and only generally staying in each town for one night.

Gelato Gusti per il Giorno:

Mike - Banane e Panna Cotta and Snickers.

Aviva - Liquirizia (twice) - FINALLY! The first time I've seen it on this trip.

To see pictures of our day, click here.