PISA & SARDINIA

Monday we set off for a day in Pisa before flying to Sardinia the next morning.  It was another stinking hot day which made the train ride from Florence to Pisa pretty unbearable, but luckily enough the campsite we were staying at had a pool.

As soon as you mention Pisa, you automatically think of the leaning tower, and that's pretty much all there is.  Everything revolves around it, all souvenir stores, shops, you name it has stuff to do with the tower.....even the key to our room had a little leaning tower on it!

We arrived mid-afternoon, dropped our bags off at our room which thank god had really good air conditioning, filled up our water bottles and set off for the leaning tower of Pisa.

As soon as you walk into the Campo dei Miracoli (Field of Miracles), you are immediately hit with the expansive green lawns that surround the Cathedral, Bapistry and Tower, along with a shitload of tourists!

2,000,000 visitors arrive every year to gawk at the amazing leaning tower, and there were plenty of them there when we arrived, most of them taking the usual touristy photos.

Of course I had to join in and tried to come up with as many different variations as I could!

 

Anna went for the more standard photo pose

It was interesting to cast your eye over the tower from up close and see that it actually straightens up at the top, like a banana! Construction started in 1173, but ground to a halt a decade later when the structures first three tiers started tilting.  Work then started again in 1272, with artisans and masons compensating for the lean by gradually building straight up from the lower storeys, thus creating a small curve.

Over the centuries, the tower has tilted an extra 1mm each year and by 1993 it was 4.47m out of whack, more than 5 degrees from the vertical.

We then visited the Cathedral - Its building commenced in 1064, and paid for with spoils brought home after Pisans attacked an Arab fleet entering Palermo a year earlier.  At the time it was the largest cathedral in Europe, its breathtaking proportions were designed to demonstrate Pisa's domination of the Mediterranean.

We had seen so many churches by this stage, that they were starting to get a little boring!

That night we ate dinner at the campsite restaurant, which as you can imagine was pretty average.  I then joined the crowd at the nearest TV to watch Italy beat Germany in the Euro Cup and therefore make it through to the finals, it was a pretty cool night watching everyone go crazy!

It was an effort getting to sleep that night as the walls of our cabin were so thin, you could hear everything around you.  Unfortunately the old couple next-door included the most irritating nagging woman I have ever heard, she went on and on and on and on, she was so damn annoying that the only way I could get her to politely shut-up, was to not so politely tell her to shut-up.  It worked!

We were up at the crack of dawn to fly to Sardinia, but already the temperature was nearing 30 degrees!  By the time we arrived in Sardinia, arranged our hire car for the week, drove an hour to the very North West of the island to our house in a town called Stintino, we were seriously ready for the beach!

La Pelosetta beach

The water was so blue and crystal clear, it was stunning!

I spent the afternoon following this little duck like bird up and down the rocks while it swam around looking for fish.

It was so much fun, I felt like David Attenborough commenting on the duck as it swum down to the lowly depths of the Sardinian coast to fetch food for itself!

Meanwhile, Anna couldn't quite handle the hot sun and found the only patch of shade around

We had to leave the beach at around 4pm to drive back to the airport to pick Steph up.  She had come over to Europe for work and was joining us in Sardinia for the 5 days.

Anna was especially pleased to see her after almost 5 months away and they chatted and chatted and chatted away, catching up on goss etc for what seemed like hours!

drinks and nibbles on our terrace

more drinks and nibbles on our terrace, about 4 hours later!

Our first night we had plenty of visitors of the lizard variety, which would become the norm each night as we went to bed.

Wednesday morning the sun was again out and that was great news for Anna and I to keep working on our already bronzing tans and even better news for Steph who was super keen to get a bit of colour before she went back to Melbourne 2 weeks later!

This time we went to La Pelosa beach, by many considered to be one of the most spectacular beaches in Italy.  Its fine white sand, clear sea sheltered from the wind and its shallow seabed makes it seem like a giant open-air pool!

La Pelosa beach

This day I was properly introduced to European women's bathers, so small and revealing, I don't remember this being the case 4 years ago when I was last in Europe!
Most of the time, it is a great thing, you really need to have dark lenses on your sunglasses to have a good look!

However, even the oldies get into it!!

We had an average lunch with a great view, spent the rest of the afternoon on the beach and then headed home for a bit of r&r and to make sure we had plenty of drinks in the fridge!

More drinks and nibbles on the terrace with a lot of fun chatter and games of cards and then out for dinner, which was quote exciting as we were sure to be in for some seafood.

It was great to get into town, have a look around the harbour and enjoy a great meal with some decent wine.  Unfortunately we were told that the only nightclub in town wasn't open for a few more weeks, so we were going to have to entertain ourselves each night!

The next morning, we were again back at the airport to pick up Saverio who was originally friends with Steph, but Anna and I have since become friends with him as well and he was kind enough to let us stay with him in Milan a few months back.

He only had a few days off work so the only thing that was on his mind was the beach.  Lucky for him, it was the same for us!

We spent the whole morning and mid-afternoon on the beach, then had a great lunch at an awesome bar/restaurant called Cameleon that had fantastic views over the beach.

We then went back to the beach for the rest of the arvo to catch some more rays.  It was capped off by a cheap Asian massage which did my calves a world of good!

That night we had a 30 euro all you can eat seafood and drink wine and mirta (Sardinia's version of limoncello).  It was the best setting, we were sitting on a jetty that had been converted into a tiny restaurant and the kitchen was a boat docked right nest to us.

seafood soup

Friday we had organised a day on the water.  For 50 euro each, we had a 12m yacht, a captain and his sidekick, a seafood lunch, plenty of swimming and only one other family on board, it was a super day.

We went out to Asinara Island, which is off the very north western tip of Sardinia.  Here we visited a little colony of sea turtles and also the eponymous prison.

Up until 1998 when it was closed, this prison was used during the years when terrorism was at its height.  Members of the Red Brigade and a number of leading figures of the mafia were detained here, including the infamous mafia boss Salvatore "Toto" Riina.

After leaving Asinara Island, we continued sailing along the coast, stopping to jump off and swim wherever the water looked beast.

Saverio mastered the backflip perfectly

me.......not so much

plenty of marine life around

After a few issues in the kitchen, and the captain realising he forgot to bring the pasta on board, we finally sat down for lunch, pasta with muscles.

The rest of the afternoon we spent sun baking on the boat, more swimming and just having a relaxing good time.

That night we went back to Cameleon.  A great bar/restaurant right on the cliffs, it had even better views in the evening as the sun went down.

Dinner again consisted of seafood!

The next day, Saverio's girlfriend Francesca surprised all of us by coming from Milan for the weekend.

We spent a long long time in the sun, amazingly with hardly any sun cream and still didn't get burnt (maybe just a little).
I also listened to Black Caviar win at Royal Ascot, which was great, but I wish I could have watched it!

That night after drinks on our terrace, we went back to Cameleon for cocktails whilst the sun went down and to try and figure out where to go for dinner.

We ended up at an amazing farm-like restaurant called Sa Mandra and although it was a 45 min trip to get there, it was worth it because the food was awesome.

Starting with antipasti (obviously), we had at least 7 different plates of food come out varying from cheese and cold meats to a weird and quite frankly revolting dish of a butchered animals internal organs, yuk!

Two more plates came out for our first course, with the clear favourite being ravioli with wild boar, but without a doubt the highlight of the meal was the "porcetto allo spiedo", a tiny roasted pig.

By the time dessert, coffee and liqueurs were over, it was past midnight and we needed to get home as Anna and I were flying out at 7 in the morning.

The next hour was horrifying.  Half way home on the main highway, a goat or lamb (there's debate about what it was) ran out onto the road and stopped right in front of us.  There was no chance of us stopping as we were going at least 90km/hr, so we basically ploughed right through it.  Saverio's scream will be etched in my mind forever, as I was not watching the road at this point and seriously thought we had crashed. Thank god Saverio had the plumbs to keep on the straight, because if he had of swerved, we would have crashed into the car coming the other way and I probably wouldn't be writing this blog today.

Amazingly the car didn't sustain too much damage, but I'm still waiting to see my credit card statement as I'm sure the car hire company will sting us for something.