June 1999 in Sardinia!
TRAVEL DIARY:
It is Saturday morning and we drive 
to Firenze where we will leave the highway to follow the good and
free road to the Tuscany coast!
We arrive in Livorno where we decide to turn to
Tirrenia to stop to a small two-stars hotel. Just
few minutes to see the room  and
wear our swimsuits and we are on the beach! 
The day after we are the first in the hotel to wake up for our
breakfast. We are ready to join the port in Livorno where we follow
the signs: “Imbarco per la Sardegna”, but the dock is a desert!
We wake-up  a man working in the "dogana"
who says that on Sunday Moby boats leave from another dock! It's
not so easy to find the right place, and we are not alone, many
cars decide to follow us, so we feel a little better!
When we arrive the boat is full of pedestrian people!!! I try to
find the check-in office with many other passengers. We finally
find it even if there are no signs!!! Now all cars are ready to
be carried on the boat and it is a really chaotic operation!!! 
Once on the boat
we sit on the "sala poltrone" where we find out that the
air-condition system is broken! It is difficult to find somebody
of the crew,  so we only have one
choice: open the doors hoping to have some fresh air! But doing
so there are many people who had no reserved (and paid!) a sitting
place, who discover that it is possible to enter...
At 20.00 o'clock we arrive to Olbia
and it is terrible again!!! During the travel, nobody explained
us how we have to behave at the moment of the arrival, so we only
have to follow the instruction given from the microphone ... and
it's hard to ear it! Again it is impossible to find someone of the
crew so ancient people and women
with small children have no opportunity to ask ho to use the elevator,
so we all have to help them while descending!!!
We are so happy to be on the road!!! We arrive to
Golfo Aranci by driving for 20 kms. We find a wonderful
three-star hotel for cheap, as it is not "high season".
We are directly on the beach!! 
(We suggest 
for dinner Smeraldo Restaurant on the main
street -Via della Libertà- great both for quality and price!!!)
 Next
morning we decide to go north following the roads which leads to
the most important and famous tourist resorts, first of all
Porto Rotondo (in the territory of Olbia) and Porto
Cervo on the Emerald Coast "Costa
Smeralda" (a sort of unreal village as Disneyland,
near Arzachena).
In Baja Sardinia we stop in to the
beach and we have our first cool bath!!!
It's lunch time but the bar along the beach in the main "piazza"
are too expensive, so we prefer to go on by car and stop to the
great restaurant Azzurra (from
Baja Sardinia driving on the road to Arzachena after the first cross
for Cannigione, near a go-kart).
In the afternoon we visit the first archeological place  of
our travel. Along the SS125 to Arzachena, you'll find the Nuraghe
Albicciu (dating back to between the tenth and the eighth
century B.C.) and the "Giants' Tombs"
Molu.
The nuraghe is a kind of tower with a truncated
cone shape, built with what is known as a cyclopic technique, which
consisted of piling up huge blocks without using mortar or other
binding material. The old inhabitants of Sardinia generally erected
these buildings in dominant positions or in the vicinity of rivers,
depending on the precise be of the land. Scientific opinion largely
agrees that the nuraghe had the same function as that of mediaeval
castles at a later date. You may find 7000 nuraghe on the island!
The "Giants' Tombs" too are megalithic constructions. Ancient people
used to think they were destined to big men, but archaeologists
discovered that they only were cumulative tombs.
Continuing along the road, it is possible to reach the archipelago
of La Maddalena then to Santa Teresa di Gallura.
This excursion allows to admire the wonderful 
and worldwide known Gallura landscapes: beaches and rocks (the best
are in Capo Testa), lapped by the
most beautiful sea in the Mediterranean basin.
We spend the night in S.Teresa. Next day we go on along the coast
to Isola Rossa where we stop in
a hotel on the
small fishing port. We buy two  sandwiches
and spend all the day in the beach!
 The
day after, we go on trough  Castelsardo,
a fortified town perched on a steep promontory, and Platamona (close
by Porto Torres) where you find the Megalithic
Altar of Monte d'Accoddi
(2700-2500 b. C.) similar to a middle-eastern ziqqurrat it probably
had a religious function. Remember to enter into the small office
called "l’Antiquarium" where you can find more info. It's
all for free.
We arrive to the ancient roman colony of Porto
Torres! The most important roman road went from here
to Cagliari, so you may find some important rest of Roman age
such as King's Barbaro's Thermae and it's magnificent mosaics. In
the exhibition there are tools, potteries, holy relics, amphoras,
anchors and other findings discovered in the site and in the harbour.
Further on we find the Roman Bridge. All visits are free.
Up in the north, tourism has transformed Stintino
from a little fishing village in a busy summer resort: its beach
of la Pelosa with its green waters looks towards the island of Asinara,
a great nature park. We keep a room in a nice hotel on a hill, where
we will stay three nights! The afternoon spent to the
Pelosa beach is so relaxing that we decide to stay there
all the following day having a little of snorkelling. 
The second day we choose to have a nice trip to Alghero, where
we arrive driving along calm rural 
roads meeting cows 
and sheep  instead
of cars!
24 kms far from town we arrive to Capo Caccia,
a great place on the top of cliffs washed by an emerald transparent
water  with
the view of the whole Alghero gulf.
 Along
the coastline are the imposing Nuraghe Palmavera
and the rest of the village (10kms
far from Alghero). The ticket costs 7.000 lire and it also allows
the visit to the grand Neolithic necropolis of Anghelu Ruju we will
see later.
We stop near the town in a very long
white sandy beach in a good smelling "pineta" to relax
and have a bath!
Alghero, is the "capital"
of the Riviera del Corallo 
and it is also known as Barceloneta, little Barcelona as it was
conquered after a long siege by King Peter of Aragon and it was
re-peopled with Catalan colonists.
In the afternoon we leave to go north to our hotel in Stintino,
and stop for the visit to the Neolithic necropolis
of Anghelu Ruju (10 kms from Alghero). A nice dog 
takes us all around the necropolis (3.000 b.C.) showing us everything!!!
We wake up early to join Porto Torres where we reach the free-highway
to Sassari to go to Torralba.
 Near
Torralba you have not to loose the Nuraghe
Santu Antine one of the most beautiful and imponent of
Sardinia.
“The nuraghe palace of Torrablba is
so called because that castle of more than three thousand years
ago, fortified with towers around the central jeep. Almost 20 metres
tall even today, quickly conjures up the image of some shephered
king who may have lived there)”
From the tourist office.
It definitely worth a visit !!!
The ticket costs only 5.000 lire and it allows the visit to the
Museo della Valle dei Nuraghi del Logudoro-Meilogu
in Torralba. So we decide to go there and see this small but
really interesting Museum rich in memories of Nuraghe and Roman
civilization. (You'll find it in Via Carlo Felice, the main street)
 Now,
as we are in the Valle dei Nuraghi, we have many archeological place
to see... most of all, I suggest to you the Necropoli di S. Andrea
Priu. It's not so far from nuraghe S.Antine (nearly 5 kms!)
It's not so expensive (5.000 lire to visit the site with a kind
girl explaining everything!!!) and it is really great!
We arrive in Macomer where in Mulàrgia area; we see the imponent
nuraghe Orolo on the top of a hill
dominating the whole valley!
We stop to spend the nigh in Macomer, but we suddenly
discover that the only three star hotel present is terrible and
that there are nothing to do or to see as all archeological area
are abandoned!
(PHOTO  )
 The
morning after, we decide to leave after a short stop to see
the small medieval church of Santa Sabina
near a nice nuraghe.
Along the road to Dorgali, we stop to see the
la Tomba dei Giganti di S’Ena e Thomes (Giants'
Tomb). Do not be afraid if from the parking you'll find a closed
cancel. You have to pass through this private area, so they use
to keep the cancel closed for sheep! You may open it to pass, but
remember to close!!! We walk for 400 meters but it is great to see
one of the most well conserved tombs of this area (we are in Barbagia,
now!). (PHOTO )
We go on our archeological tour in the Villaggio
Serra Orrios, one of the biggest prehistorical villages!!!
After Dorgali, the road pass trough a tunnel in order to arrive
on the coast where you'll find Cala Gonone
in the Golfo di Orosei, a big natural marine reserve to preserve
the "foca
monaca".
We spend a little of time in the beach, and when we decide to have
a trip by boat along the coast, we are no lucky as the weather turn
to be bad  !
On morning, we have to leave the hotel as we have no more money
cash  and we
need to find a banc. It seems strange, but it is impossible to find
one here! You have to go back to Dorgali on the top of the hill!
We stop to Marina di Orosei for
a walk along the long white sandy beach near a lake where some flamingoes
live.
Later we stop for a bath to Caletta beach
near S.Teodoro, but it is too windy today, so it is impossible to
stay on the beach!
We arrive in Olbia where we stop to the port in order to change
our reservation on the boat! After the bad travel to come to Sardinia,
we prefer to have a more comfortable travel next time! We have to
stay in Sardinia three days more, but it's better to have information
now, as we do not know where we can find a Moby office! It seems
to be hard to find a cheap cabin, but there is the chance to find
one directly on the boat.
We go back to Golfo Aranci looking
for the hotel where we spent our first night. But now it is "high
season" and the room is really expensive! We are lucky and
the nice two-stars hotel La Lampara has a beautiful room for 3 nights.
It's near beaches and it has only 10 new rooms. You'll find everything
 TV and 
telephone, but also typical Sardinian carpets!
Golfo Aranci is grown thanks to its port. It lies at the foot of
the headland of Capo Figari. Its surroundings are scattered with
several, famous tourist resorts.
We spend two days relaxing on the beach
!!!!
The last day, we decide to visit Olbia.
Olbia is the center of the Gallura that is on the northeast Sardinia
it is also the heart of sea and air connection to and from the
island. It overlooks its gulf, closed by the superb back-ground
of the island of Tavolara and Capo Ceraso to the south and Capo
Figari to the north. It is one of the most frequented localities
on the island by Italian and foreign tourists.
 We
arrive to the port where we have to be so fast to arrive in time
to find one of the last cabins to spend the night in a most comfortable
way!
At 7.00 o'clock
we wake up and at 8.00 we arrive in Livorno where we find the great
Italian marine school boat: Amerigo Vespucci
!!!!
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