I’ve been very busy.  

This past weekend we did an overnight trip to Sulcis, which is a region west of Cagliari. We drove over in a pack of four land rovers because some of the driving involved some pretty rough dirt roads. I tried to practice my Italian by chatting a bit with our driver. We drove through the mountains and that itself was a good time because the views were beautiful and the people in my car were playing throwback songs. 

We stopped and walked around an abandoned mining town. We had a cool tour guide with us who knows the history of Sardinia really well and she said that mining has always been a big thing in Sardinia because they have a lot of valuable minerals and various groups have tried to conquer them for it. 

Then we went to the beach. I went to the beach once in Cagliari and it was a very windy day so it was not great but this beach was PERFECT. The water was a beautiful aqua and so clear and not cold–just the right amount of cool for a hot day. 

This region apparently is the largest desert in Europe (there aren’t really deserts in Europe so that’s not saying much) so I went on a hike up some sand dunes with Annalisa and two other students. The sand was really hot and painful to walk in. Annalisa bought us ice cream afterward. I wasn’t super impressed by the dunes since they look pretty similar to the ones in California but overall it was fun. 

Next we drove into the countryside and went to a farmhouse B&B where we made pasta and had dinner. Pretty much everything we ate came from the farm so it’s probably the freshest meal I ever had. After dinner we went star gazing and stayed overnight there. 

Important to mention that there was a cat at the farmhouse. 

The next morning we went to the cave of Su Mannau which was super cool. The guide said that the locals told a story that there was a very ugly ogre living in the cave and the locals locked him in there because they thought he was evil and were afraid of him. But he wasn’t evil and he was sad to be locked away so he cried and that formed the river that runs under the cave. Sad story but awesome cave. 

We went to get lunch from a seafood place and I told Annalisa that I don’t eat fish so I was totally prepared to just eat the vegetarian option but Annalisa got the people at the restaurant to bring me non-fish meat and they brought me a whole steak. Italian meals come in a lot of courses so this was the fourth thing they brought me and I didn’t think I had any room left but I ate the whole thing. Also I tried octopus because everyone else was eating it and saying it was so good but I thought it was bad.

Next we went to Porto Flavia which is a sea harbor where they dug out tunnels through a mountain to allow for easier transport of minerals to ships. We went in the tunnels and they were cool but not as cool as the cave so I don’t even have pictures of them. In the picture below you can kind of see a castle-looking thing at the edge of the mountain and that’s Porto Flavia. 

Next we got on a ferry and headed to the island of Carloforte. Everyone got dressed nice for dinner and we stopped at a point to watch the sunset. We had a meal at another fish place and I did have to eat the vegetarian option there which was just ok. I was so tired from the long day and they took forever to bring out all the courses. I just wanted to go to bed but I felt like I was being held hostage by this Italian meal. We didn’t get back to the hotel until a bit after midnight.  

The next day we hiked down to a volcanic pool where we went swimming. We kept jumping into the pool from a tall rock and Annalisa said she lost a year of her life every time we did that. The landscape was really cool because the rocks had a lot of air bubbles in them and it felt like being on another planet. 

We stopped by some cliffs for the cool views, which reminded me a lot of California, and then went to the beach for a couple hours. I did a lot of swimming and got pretty sunburned even though I put on sunscreen three times. I forgot to take a picture of the beach, but there are a lot of beaches in Sardinia and there will be a lot more on this trip so it’s fine. 

Finally we went into town in Carloforte and got some gelato. Then we got back on the ferry and drove back to Cagliari. 

Are you as exhausted by this post as I was by this trip? Let me know in the comments below.