Kevin has been dreaming of the seafood spaghetti that he had a couple of weeks ago. So today our mission was simple, we wanted some Italian food, it is Friday after all. We decided not to risk leaving this vital mission to the sole restaurant in Porto Ottiolu which appeared to be opening and seem to only be advertising panini anyway.
Therefore after our morning dog walk on the beach, we were on our way into nearby San Teodoro. Apparently as recently as the 1950’s people were still dying in Sardinia due to malaria. This was partially due to the many stagno (pools) of freshwater at the coast which meant that coastal living was not regarded as the healthiest place to live historically in Sardinia. Therefore in our search of places where people are still actually living in the winter we are finding more success with more inland towns, I think not so much due to affordability as in the UK, but because that is where their families came from.
San Teodoro does actually have a neighbouring beach but appears to you have a more year-round residents than the coastal resorts we have visited recently. We managed to find a quiet spot in the corner of the sports stadium car park and used that as a base for the day to explore the town.
It was only a five minute walk to the centre of town, which is centred around the unusual modern circular church of Chiesa di Madre Teresa. There was already much more of a buzz here with lots of people going about their daily business. Plus there was a higher concentration of restaurants than we have seen in such a small place anywhere in Sardinia so far, it must be rammed here in the summer. We hoped that surely one of these must open today. We decided to start our tour with some lovely Italian coffee joining all the locals who seem to regularly punctuate their day with a quick expresso.
We also found a shop selling typical Sardinian food obviously aimed more to the tourist market but open all year round. This time of year it was more of a off-licence of local wines and spirits. We are really enjoying the local wine and because it is a relatively small island once you find a wine you like you can actually find it again, unlike France where you hardly see the same wine twice on your travels. We managed to pick up a white version of the local Mirto spirit, which will we hope be a good substitute for our usual white port for Christmas. We were enjoying the local scene so decided to stop for more coffee, as one is never enough.
Back to the van to drop off our wares and do a little reading and study before lunch as it was a bit overcast today. At lunchtime we actually had a number of options of open restaurants a decided to partake at the busiest, full of local workers coming in for lunch. I remember working for the first time with a number of Europeans whilst in London, many years ago, who were horrified by our English habit of eating pre-made boxed sandwiches at our desks at lunch and hence forth insisted on the whole team going for a proper sit down lunch in the canteen every day.
So we successfully managed to get some Italian seafood spaghetti for Kevin and I had the pesto spaghetti, which is a favourite of mine. However one course was quite sufficient for lunch and we retired back to the van for a cup of tea.
We went out later on for an afternoon dog walk. There was some sort of evening practice going on at the stadium we were parked at and we decided it was time to move, we were both ready to get out of the town. We had spotted a beach car park just outside the town which looked inviting and seemed to be ok to camp at this time of year.
So just as the sun was setting we found a nice level spot on our own in a car park by the beach with lovely views. Looking forward to waking up here and seeing the views at sunrise.
In for a Penney 