We have just short of a week until we jump on the ferry to Sicily, so this morning we were deliberating where else we wanted to go on Sardinia in our last few days. We eventually decided on a return to the island of Sant’Antioco. We had spent a couple of days here in our first lap in the capital of the island, also called Sant’Antioco, but due to lack of available services we did not get to see anymore of the island. As we had stayed at a sosta last night in Baradili, we had services available so we are now free to travel 🙂 Although we have enjoyed the hills, a bit of coastal might be good for a couple of days.
We had a nice walk around the pretty village of Baradili we stayed at last night before breakfast, admiring the level of facilities they had for such a small place. They had a community meeting hall, three restaurants, children’s playground, outdoor gym, even an outdoor swimming pool and slide complex. It was all perfectly well maintained, we even saw a local council worker sweeping leaves, impressive enough in a small village anyway, let alone on 2nd Jan. There was also a lot of older stone buildings, which you do not see that often in Sardinia, which seems a little surprising on an island that seems to have several tonnes of stone in every uncultivated field.
We get quite a bit of attention in our van as the four wheel drive version is relatively rare and the ride height etc makes us stand out. This morning though we had a man drag his wife over for photos and videos, flattering I suppose. Then, after our now highly efficient silver screen removal and motorhome services routine, we were on the road again heading south west. It was a nice cross country route passing through small towns and villages always interesting as long as the roads are wide enough! We then realised we recognised the road and we realised why Villamassargia sounded familiar on the signs, we had stayed here before. The site of our first “best ever pizza”, equalled perhaps but not beaten since.
Soon we passing over the causeway onto Isola di Sant’Antioco, but this time we turned to go round the south of the island. Within a short drive pulling up at the small beach resort of Maladroxia, which funnily enough the barman we met in Villamassargia had recommended to us. We found a spot in the large flat beach car park occupied by just one other van. Kev made some lunch, delicious tuna steaks 😋 whilst I de-fizzed the dogs on the field nearby, as every new stop is very exciting for them!
This afternoon I found us a walk on one of my route apps, up the side of the beach and round the hills above. As we left the rough track servicing the handful of villas on the hill, the route turned out to be a marked out nature trail complete with information board. This route consisted of wooden hand rails each side of the track, through some fairly high shrub land which meant we did not get quite the sea views I had anticipated. Also the very prescriptive hand rail bordered route also limited the nature spotting opportunities. However, the trail had lots of heavily dug up areas, which Kev deduced was likely wild boar, so it seems there is nature to be seen, if you time it right. Although as wild boar have killed Kings in the past I was happy not to meet any in such close quarters with our dogs who are somewhat bolder and more daring than wise.
So back to the van for more family video catch ups and a bit of admin. While Kevin was experimenting again with artichokes and the remainder of our aubergine. The artichokes are in season here and we have passed fields and fields of them today – now we know what they look like!
We could hear what sounded like a pack of hunting dogs in the woodland not far from where we had just come from. Hunting seems popular here, there are a quite a few hunting gear shops around and you sometimes see the hunters in big groups roadside, wearing their obligatory fluorescent orange (I gather from France, this is because they are as likely to shoot each other as the wildlife). Again we were happy to be back in the van not in range, although we did not hear any shots.
In for a Penney 