Sardegna, Italia
02/11/2022
I like winter. It has snow, skiing, Christmas, and tasty foods going for it.
But what I don‘t like is temperatures going down within the first week of coming back from a late summer holiday to the point where I have to wear a winter jacket. I am sure you can relate.
So what better place for escaping this than Italy, where the transition to the cold time of the year is smooth and you can have some good food and wine to make it feel even smoother.
This time around, me and my family wanted to discover Sardegna, the beautiful Italian Island in the Mediterranean Sea. So after escaping freezing temperatures and grey skies by taking a flight from Vienna the day before, I was immediately back in my summer holiday mood upon arriving on the island.
On Tuesday 2 November we left Olbia in the morning to head southbound. Our first destination was Spiaggia di Porto Istana, a beautiful beach with view of Isola Piana, a massive rock standing out from the ocean in a few kilometres distance.
We parked the rental car on the nearest dirt road and walked the remaining 100 metres. This let us take in the flora, left mostly untouched by people, and already at from the car we were able to see momentous Isola Piana. The beach was mostly empty and the sea was calm.
Since the rock did not look so far away, I wanted to fly over as far as possible with my drone. As I would soon realise, there was indeed some distance between us and the island so that even after flying a kilometre the rock was still far away.
Once I noticed that flying over would be an overly ambitious goal, I turned around for some shots of the shoreline instead. I have not spent that much time near the Mediterranean Sea before, so the beautiful blue sparkles of the ocean captivated me.
I was able to fly low and take an aerial picture of a small rock on the route from the beach towards the Island. It made me imagine how cool it would be to cruise over with a small dinghy or canoe. But of course, we had neither the time nor the equipment to do so. Maybe another time.
Since the weather was beautiful and the beach looked inviting, I switched into my bathing shorts to go for a November swim. The water was fresh, but comparing it to surfing in the pacific near Australia during winter it was quite pleasant still.
We spent quite some time there before continuing southbound to see some flamingos. Yes, you read that right, flamingos. Sardegna does in fact have a flourishing flamingo population and we did not want to miss out on that.
Once near Stagno di San Teodoro, we pulled over to see the birds. While there were plenty of them, it was quite hard to take pictures since they were so far away. In order to solve this, I used my drone to fly over, cautious not to scare the animals.
We also stopped at Spiaggia La Cinta, a long, wide-sanded beach. It did not come close to Porto Istana‘s beauty, so we did not stick around.
Having gotten quite hungry, our next mission was to find a good restaurant. This was not an easy feat, given that it was off-season and about 90% of places were closed (without changing their opening hours on Google Maps of course).
Fortunately, I found Trattoria Don Giovanni, a Sardinian restaurant in San Teodoro. It was an exquisite place with nice seating on a cozy terrace, friendly service, and very fresh (sea-) food.
After this delicious meal we had quite some distance to drive, as our hotel for the night would be B&B Su Strintu, a lovely decorated rustico. It was dark once we got there, but I have attached pictures from the next morning so you can actually see something.
For dinner we got a recommendation for the nearby cooking school Sa Scolla Baradili, which was one of the few places open during this time of the year and supposed to offer fresh and tasty local foods. As you’d imagine, this got our hopes up for some savoury dinner. Unfortunately the place did not deliver. While this is not a restaurant review, let it be said that even if you serve just pizza, it may be advisable to make it taste good and offer friendly service with it.
After dinner we drove back to our B&B to get some sleep before the next day.
Adiòsu!