Escape from Reality

Birthdays.  Love ’em, hate ’em, but they invariably roll around each year.  This year was a big one for me.  The one where you begin to see those 60s fading away and the 70s coming at you fast.  Turning 65 was a sobering experience for me and like most sobering experiences I wasn’t really prepared for it.  So I did what you do when you want to avoid reality.  I went on a trip.  Escapism, I think it’s called.

I looked at several different destinations for my “birthday escape from reality tour” and it all boiled down to convenience.  Did I really want to be in a car for hours on end, driving across country borders?  Did I want to take trains through the Alps (a romantic notion that I will do one day)?  No, I wanted to maximize my vacation time and minimize my travel time.  So I narrowed it down to where I could fly to from the little airport about 45 minutes away in Perugia.  Home of the discount airlines that fly into smaller airports around Europe, Perugia’s airport is perfect for maximizing convenience.  With only five gates, it’s incredibly easy to get in and out of and has a remarkable on-time record.  There’s just not that much traffic to muck things up.  Sardinia (Sardegna, in Italian) was my choice.  We could fly there in just under an hour for about 100 euro round trip.

Island Oasis

We took off from Perugia early one October morning in a steady rain.  Soon we were up above the clouds to where the sun was bright.  The thing about a flight that’s less than an hour is that you barely have time to get settled in before you’re preparing for landing.  The skies cleared and from my window seat I could see the sparkling Mediterranean below me.  Then the outline of that island formed by the movement of tectonic plates some 30 million years ago.

Sardegna is an eruption from the sea.  From the air, I got a great view of the rugged terrain.  Filled with mountains and dramatic coastlines, its landscape is a diverse hodgepodge of geologic phenomena.  And if you haven’t watched “The Blue Zones” on Netflix, Sardegna is one of the places in the world where there is a high concentration of thriving elderly people.  Taking a look at this topography from the air, I could see that if you lived there, you were part mountain goat.

We landed in Cagliari, which is on the southernmost tip of Sardegna.  Our plan was to rent a car and drive up the coast to Alghero, which is in the northwest corner.  Everything was going along just great until we got to the rental car desk.  The car was in Steve’s name because he is my chauffeur.  However, the one thing we forgot to bring was Steve’s international driver’s license.  It was in the car back at the airport in Perugia.  We’ve rented dozens of cars in Italy over the 28 years we’ve been coming here and never once have we been asked for an international driver’s license.  Guess what?  This time we were asked.

An Italian Complication

For some crazy reason, I had my international driver’s license.  So we asked if we could just rent the car in my name.  Now this is where logic and rules diverge.  No, we couldn’t do that because we had rented the car through a promotion with Ryan Air when we booked our plane ticket.  So we would have to change the reservation through them, not the rental car agency.  Steve was on the phone with Ryan Air for about an hour and a half.  I am not kidding.  I watched as dozens of families rolled in, dragging luggage behind them, stood in line and left with keys in their hands.  I watched Steve pace the length of the car rental building as he tried to convince Ryan Air to change the reservation.  Finally they got it changed, but by then all the cars were gone from that agency.  Yes, that’s right.  No more cars.

As frustration began to mount and hunger pangs increased (our early flight meant no breakfast and our no-frills airline meant no snacks), we decided to cancel the reservation entirely and just rent a car from another agency.  We ended up paying a little more, but it was worth it to get out of that dreary little building.  So a mere two hours after we landed, off we drove in our fire engine red Lancia.

To the North

We drove up the coastal highway and arrived in one of the little towns I had identified as a lunch stop.  Cabras is near the coast and reportedly has an excellent museum.  We didn’t have time to visit it since we were so delayed by our rental car fiasco.  But we had a lovely lunch in this quirky little town with its colorful houses and beach town vibe.  Our first seafood meal was everything we needed to put the rocky start behind us.  And we had our first bottle of the crisp white wine, Vermentino, that the island is known for.  A lovely meal with a great wine corrects many evils.  We left happy.

Tharros

There is an archeological site near Cabras called Tharros.  Founded by the Phoenicians in the 7th century BC, it was an important trading hub.  We later found out that these ancient people had a healthy trade going on with other ancient people, like the Etruscans.  It was fascinating to me to discover that the ancients who roamed our part of Tuscany, the Etruscans, did business with these people on faraway Sardegna.  It made me think that perhaps these civilizations were a little more sophisticated than I had imagined.

This enchanting city, spread out over a jut that pokes into the Mediterranean, was huge and thriving.  People later moved inland after realizing that living right on the coast was quite dangerous, making you sitting ducks for invaders coming from the sea.

Alghero

We continued up the coast to Alghero.  This is in the northwest corner of Sardegna and is a walled city right on the Mediterranean.  Part Catalan, part Italian, it is a mix-up of cultures and architecture.  We arrived late afternoon, checked into our hotel and then walked around a bit.  After our big seafood lunch, we just had a little nibble for dinner and a drink outside, watching the sun set over the Mediterranean and listening to the waves lap against the sea wall.  A gentle breeze rattled the palm trees, making a percussive compliment to the rhythmic waves.  It was heavenly.  Far from the brutal rain and chill we left in Tuscany.

The next day was the big birthday.  Because milestones in life for me are marked by food, I had carefully chosen three possible restaurants for my birthday dinner.  So we set out in the morning to check them out and make a decision.  Two were on the main street that runs along the ocean.  The third was down a rabbit’s warren of alleys and twists and turns.  The first two were just too fancy and touristy for me.  Something about them didn’t feel right.  But the third, the hard to find one, the one that wouldn’t be sought out by tourists (although that’s what we were and we found it) felt right.  However, since it was a Sunday, they were only open for lunch, not dinner. So we changed our plans and had a big birthday lunch instead of a big birthday dinner and snagged the last table.  And I’m so glad we did.

It was fantastic and the chef/owner was a delightful woman who came out between courses and chatted with friends, stopping for a glass of wine here, a hug there, a cigarette outside.  The menu was fixed.  They just bought out food.  This is my favorite thing in the world.  I love not having to decide anything.  I love it when food is just presented to me.  I may not like it all, but I do try things that I normally wouldn’t have.  And that’s what makes you get a feel for the place, for the food, and for the traditions.  The chef’s brothers are fishermen and she only prepares what is fresh that day.  It changes based on what’s available.  Everyone in the place got the same exact food at the same exact time.  It was a ballet, a symphony.  I left older, but happier.

Cagliari

After our couple of nights in Alghero, we drove back down the coast to Cagliari.  Cagliari is the biggest city on the island, the capital.  It’s where we flew into and where we had our unfortunate incident with the rental car.  It’s also where we ended our trip.  We stayed three nights there and thoroughly enjoyed it.

We stayed near the marina and were within walking distance of fabulous restaurants, bars, shops, and general wonderfulness.  We had some fantastic meals there, all within a short stroll of our apartment. Even though it’s a big city, Cagliari has a small town feel to it.  Beautiful views and great museums, it offered a great place to wind up our Sardinian adventure.

Regrets?

There were a few things on my wish list that I didn’t get to.  We discovered new things along the way that sidetracked us from our plans.  And that’s the best kind of vacation.  When you discover the unexpected and abandon your schedule.  When you do things that you didn’t anticipate.  And the things that you didn’t get to but wanted to?  Well, that’s just an excuse to go back.

Restaurants:

Il Caminetto, Cabras, https://www.ristoranteilcaminettocabras.com/

Mabrouk, Alghero, Via Santa Barbara, 4, 07041 Alghero SS, Italy

Ristorante Ada, San Sperate, https://www.facebook.com/ada.ristorante/?locale2=it_IT&_rdr

Il Fana, Cagliari, Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, 99, 09124 Cagliari CA, Italy

Si Piola, Cagliari, https://www.sapiola.it/

Lo Zenit, Cagliari, https://ristorantezenit.it/