Automatic for the People

A deep dive into reflection on life of the 70s was the REM album, so I'll take that spiritual steer as we hit the backpacker with style approach to life again. Hardly the hippy trail but we have our moments. I'll also take a literal steer, quite literally a steer in fact, as we ended up with an automatic car out here which actually is my preference when abroad.

So round 2 of the Summer tour has begun, a few health issues this week cast a potential cloud, but post covid travel perhaps adds that layer of fear, as well as being a nearly 50 year old hypochondriac. All to one side for now and we have arrived in Sardinia. Just to clear up that first question on everyone's lips - are Sardines named after Sardinia or the other way round (answer to come)

So what's the plans for this one, having done some skimming of the Lonely Planet must dos I'll see how many of the following we can tick off in the next 5 days:

- Beach Bliss (found my own favourite patch of white sand already)

- Village Hopping

- Explore Ancient Civilisations

- Food from the Source (locally produced cheese and beer consumed within first day)

- Soaking up the Culture

- The Great Wide Open (glimpses today on our drive across the South East)

- Taking to the Seas

- Country Living (perhaps the toughest one, we are beach bums this week)

Went to bed 10.00 last night after watching the highlights of Wales beating South Africa. 1 hr 15 mins of no sleep later I was up and readying myself for the midnight departure. Was nearer to 1 when we hit the road up to Gatwick,the M4 and M25 at their finest at that time of night. Straight through, no dramas; we had decided (knowing sleep was going to be hard to find however we did this) to pay for meet and greet parking at the terminal at Gatwick rather than booking hotels/car parking.

We were checking in at 4am as the airport was stirring into life. Having checked in online, printed our boarding cards at the airport and used the self service bag drop.Felt just like the self service at Sainsburys, and luckily we didn't need to call for assistance. Sticking our own flight labels on and sending the bags down the chute felt a leap of faith, but staff shortages and all that, we have to do our bit!

Thank goodness it was an early flight, they were already queuing for Wetherspoons. We took up our usual position, but maybe not our usual diet. I went for a healthier eggs benedict and a pint of Guinness, just to transition out of the Ireland holiday properly

Our BA flight was actually operated by Iberia Express (Vuelling) so we had the rather peculiar experience of Spanish cabin crew providing us our Italian transport. European unity alive and well.

I took the rather lastminute decision to download some Netflix and More 4 stuff to watch on the Ipad on this flight, recalling the rather dearth of entertainment last year en route to Iceland.  Went past though in the blink of an eye, mainly as my eyes did actually close for a good part of the trip.

We were soon in the Sardinian sunshine, and then quickly after in a long passport queue. No rush today so not too bothered to be in the alien line, and actually quite liked having my passport stamped. The second limited benefit I have found of Brexit, I am scratching around though to be fair.

On reclaiming our baggage, we did a great job, I'm asking for a promotion.  It was then hunt down the Avis desk and getting the relatively good news of the automatic car. Thinking of names, something Italian, is Robert de Niro still talking?

Was just over an hour drive to our Air Bnb in Costa Rei, most of the roads were large highways, just a few local hills to navigate towards the end. Our abode is very much on high, and we took a short while to find out way in via lock box and the use of keys!

We did feel a bit worn out, but decided that we had things to see, and the sea could see us, and was truly breathtaking.  So we tried to walk down, ran into a few dead ends, and decided to get back in the car to do a bit of local orientation.

Carys and Chrissi particularly interested to have their first dip in the Med, I sank into the golden sands and fell into a deep slumber. It was really quite relaxing, and I was really quite exhausted. But replenished enough after that to take a short reviving dip myself, what a beautiful spot.

Not much open and we knew we all needed to wind down after a long day, so bought a stack of local beer and cheese and fruit to consume from our viewing point, well above the stunning resort of Costa Rei. 

 Greek origin to the name BTW, a big footprint, the inhabitants the original sardines, the large numbers of said fish found off the island means the species took the name around the 15th century by all accounts https://totalsardinia.com/how-did-sardinia-get-its-name/

-Carys-

Diving straight back into the travel, with my first venture on a plane, which to me counts as my first abroad since before covid, since summer 2019. Yet weirdly, I feel like we never stopped. A very early start for us, which we haven't done in years I don't think, well at least not from home anyway. Its typical now for us to stay in an airport hotel and catch an early flight following that, but this time, we were out of the house before 1am. Having set the alarms for just gone 12, I tried to get a reasonable 3 hours of sleep which I was lucky enough to follow up a little in the car. The journey to Gatwick felt quite delirious as it didn't feel like we were driving late at night, but obviously it was dark out. We just missed the start of the sunrise as we left the car and got ourselves checked in. After some short queues and waving goodbye to baggage, we made our way through security, reasonably smoothly (but did have to rush to empty a water bottle first of course, having forgotten to before we went upstairs oops.) In all honesty, i prefer Heathrow to Gatwick, but interesting to have a different experience, and it we made our way through very easily today.

 I think the lack of sleep caught up with me though as I felt very drained (for most of the day really). We had a spoons breakfast to fill us up, and boarded the plane. I found the flight not among my favourites - maybe i'm just out of practise - but it was a quick one so was over reasonably soon. Having got off near the back of the plane and visited the toilet, we queued for a long time in the arrivals area, and when we eventually got our bags, it took us a short while to acquire our car. We're still debating on a name, but looking into something Italian, Will keep you posted. We drove said car out to the coast, which we had seen on our flight in (the views had been lovely in all fairness), where we were greeted with more spectacular scenery. 

After following the windy roads up the hillier part of the coast, we arrived at our destination, essentially letting ourselves into the accommodation as we'd arrived early.

 A cute spot - not as convenient as we'd hoped unfortunately, as access to the beach is not as easy as imagined, but the views absolutely make up for this. I'm sure we'll enjoy some stunning sunsets over the next few nights. The ocean is one of the prettiest i've ever seen, made up of the loveliest blues and greens. To try and navigate our way around, we did some wandering, but realised the car was the best bet for getting down to the seafront easily, in such heat. we parked up and strolled down, picking up some quick refreshments. Mum and I decided to test out the waters, literally, and they were amazing as hoped. Amazing temperature and just calm enough - though the salt is quite off putting for me personally. But i can put up with that, and we had a lovely time cooling off. 

We spent some time in the sun then to dry again, before picking up some bits in the obligatory European supermarket sweep, where we observe what's different to home and what's similar. We collated enough things to make a lovely buffet, which we've now enjoyed on the balcony - with the lovely sunset as mentioned before. Still feeling very tired so thinking of getting an early night to rejuvenate ourselves!