Sardinia - part 3 - East coast to west coast

Holidays are lovely, it has to be said, but being thrown together 24h/24 as they say here in France can twang the happiest clappiest of nerves. Anyway, doesn't it grip the giblets more to read about the arguments of others than to snarl at the relentless perfection of their diplomatic relations?

So, rest assured, my DB and I had a good dose of désaccord. Nothing unusual there either. The last time we went on holiday he threatened to put me on the train home. I was already planning my weekend's partying (haha) when we rode on past the train station and our war of nerves abated.

Anyway, we spent the day riding around the Sardinian countryside. We left St Teresa in the rain and headed for one of the most beautiful parts of the island, the Costa Smeralda. The rain did not do it justice, frankly.

Costa Smeralda in the rain

A Costa Smeralda posh hotel in distance

It's a very posh area where the hotels are all more expensive than they would be elsewhere, one reason why we decided not to stay there - the main one actually! However we enjoyed visiting one little marina, Poltu Quatu which looked ultra posh tucked away in a natural inlet with room for what looked like 500 boats.

Poltu Quatu marina

Each mooring space had access to services such as electricity from those covered posts, and at the end was the dinkiest little village of white houses snuggled into the tiny space available. We went back at the end of our holiday and saw it looking completely different in the sunshine!

Poltu Quatu in the sun

We also liked Porto Rotondo - another well-to-do village, the coast of jutting headlands and (presumably) blue sea and other pretty villages. There are a lot of private houses built along the coast so you can't always see the views, but those you can are spectacular.

From the east coast, we drove across island to the west coast. It was raining so all I noticed was that it was hilly and green. I also noticed my left boot had split at the seam and hoped it wouldn't rain too hard or too much! Luckily the sun came out after lunch so my boots dried out as we rode along. I hadn't taken along spare shoes for lack of space that I needed for my Kindle and my netbook (priorities!) so that was a relief!

On the west coast, we went to visit Costa Paradisio - who could resist with such a name? It's a private holiday village but out of season they weren't checking who went in so we rode down to the sea and found a lovely little rocky inlet of vibrant orange granite where someone was diving for sea urchins.

Costa Paradisio, click to see sea urchin diver

Bucket of sea urchins to be sold to restaurants probably.

Costa Paradisio red rocks

I was intrigued by the sea urchins. My DB told me that what you eat is in fact the testicles and that if I cared to try them no problem, but he would avoid kissing me for an indefinite period... Naturally I was immediately determined to try them, but when it came to it, I lacked the balls to provoke a diplomatic incident.

It was time to head to our next lodging which we had chosen off the internet. There weren't many hotels around so I had found a place in the guide book Petit Futé which recommended staying on a farm, called 'Agriturismo', basically a rural chambre d'hotes. La Cerra provided bed and breakfast and dinner as they were miles from anywhere, all for €110 for two.

When we arrived, my DB was not sure he was going to like it, especially when he heard there was no wifi except in the evenings when the daughter had finished 'working' with it and relinquished the 'cube' to her father. What we should have done at that point was leave and find a hotel in the nearest town, but, unaware of our impending doom, I said brightly that it might be a bit basic, but it looked fine. The views were lovely from the outbuilding which had been converted into a row of 5 rooms.

View from the terrace in front of the rooms

I sat on a wicker chair and read my Kindle in the sun. As time went on, the other guests appeared, all Germans who seemed a nice hearty bunch. My DB muttered that he hoped we would not have to eat dinner at a long matey table on benches. He was now in a bad temper and stayed that way resolutely through dinner. Atmosphere...

I was expecting a good dinner as they had said there would be many courses. Dinner was served in a building a hundred metres or so from the bedrooms. My DB had a torch, luckily, or we would never have found our way back in the pitch black. There was no choice about what to eat (cue muttering from my DB who asked me if it would be vegetarian... haha some hope!). First we had a ham and mixed veg in cream cheese on a sort of dryish brioche. Not a good start. Then came a dish with that long wide pasta which was served with a courgette and mint sauce which was nice enough. Then we had the main course of home-reared veal chunks in a gravy with broad beans. It was very tasty actually, the meat was delicious. For dessert we were offered either an orange or an apple or a slice of ricotta cheese with a dark boiled honey sauce. Wanting something more exotic than a piece of fruit, I had the ricotta which was also nice enough; the honey was very rich and contrasted well with the cheese. We drank the only wine provided which was a red plonkino, drinkable but nothing more, and we were offered a glass of grappa or myrtille liqueur. My DB was generally not impressed and reckoned it was not worth the money.

Worse was to come because there were not enough blankets on the bed and the night was very cold. The bathroom had neither soap nor hair dryer so it was pretty basic too. Breakfast was taken at the long matey table (with chairs) - breakfast rolls, home-made jam, and very waxy honey. I was surrounded by the Germans who talked about football apparently. The final aggravating factor was that the guy didn't take credit cards but accepted cash or a bank transfer. One doesn't necessarily travel with one's internet banking information, and my DB was extremely annoyed at having to battle with the crappy internet connection to try and make the transfer. Even the coffee was bad as it wasn't made with an espresso machine, but one of those Turkish coffee boilers. He was all for doing a bunk in fact!

It took a few hours of riding in beautiful scenery until nearly lunch time for us to shake off the grumpy feelings. He felt that we'd been ripped off and that the place really wasn't worth the money which it probably wasn't. I suggested that it was, however, good to experience the variety on offer in a place, and that now he'd seen agriturismo (and developed a strong aversion to it) we didn't need to try it again, and he'd be grateful for whatever came next.

Always look on the bright side, I say (cue muttering and heavy shrugging).

A Domestic in Paradise

Montpellier is 242km from Cadaqués, or two and three quarter hours by autoroute. Last half term holidays we took the autoroute as far as Perpignan, then came off to take the coastal road to Spain.

As I'm a bit susceptible to the cold, I was wearing my birthday pressie, an electric jacket. This nifty piece of clothing plugs into the bike battery and has wires running over the front and back. You wear it under the leather jacket to keep you warm as toast and as snug as a bug despite a biting wind and plunging temperatures. Was I happy to have it? Yep.

We made it as night fell and set off in search of a hotel. This was the beginning of November and some had already packed up for the winter. After some disappointment that the off-season prices were not lower, we found a 3* hotel that was pretty basic, but open. It was a depressing place, with cracked tiles in the room and no sign of refurbishment since it opened thirty years ago.

We couldn't get the wifi to work either, so went down to the centre in search of food and a connection. We found both in a pizzeria that served very average pizzas, and found out later (thanks to the wifi connection) that we should have gone to the place next door for a decent meal...

On our way back to the hotel, we popped into a mini market and bought some beer to consume in our poky little room. I had my Kindle so I'm always happy, and my DB finally got the wifi to work so he was happy too.

Morning sunshine over a stormy Cadaqués

The next morning we went for breakfast in the dining area that had 'Do not take food out of here' notices all over the place, plus a couple of sentries standing guard to ensure we didn't sneak out a packet of biscuits. I had no chance to make sarnies, but wouldn't have been tempted anyway because the breakfast wasn't up to much. The only redeeming feature was the view towards the coast. We decided to leave.

Dali's house at Portlligat

Before we left though, we wanted to walk to Dali's house and visit it, leaving our stuff at the hotel. You have to book to get a ticket - no turning up on the day - so we went online and found 2 tickets for an hour hence - some of the time slots before were already booked up!

It was a 20 minute walk across to the village where we arrived to splendid views across the bay, and Dali's house snuggled in among the trees. It's in fact a row of formerly fishermen's cottages. He started off with a very basic one-room cottage which had a fireplace and a tiny living space. He took Gala there so they could experience an intense togetherness.

Dali's first house (no idea where they went to the loo or washed...)

"The Portlligat Museum-House was Salvador Dalí’s only fixed abode, the place in which he usually lived and worked up till 1982 when, upon Gala’s death, he took up residence at Púbol Castle.

Salvador Dalí moved to Portlligat in 1930, into a small fisherman’s hut, attracted by the landscape, the light and the isolation of the place. Taking that initial construction as a basis, he created his house little by little over the course of forty years. He himself described it “like a true biological structure [...]. Each new pulse in our life has its own new cell, a room”."

The pool. Is that a dodgy looking pool or is just my smutty mind?

It really is an amazing place with fantastic décor and a surreal, opulent look to certain rooms. Dali had a couple of mirrors installed in his bedroom which captured the early morning sun. He wanted to be the first person in Spain to see the sun rising, along with the lighthouse further down the coast, and to have the experience from his bed.

It's definitely worth a visit if you're in the area. We headed back to our hotel to pick up our stuff and ride across the bay to a hotel on the other side, much nicer place with a lovely terrace where you could sit and admire the view if it wasn't too windy.

We dumped our stuff and went for a walk to the little island. You can get there by scrambling over the rocks, and then get nearly blown off the bridge in the gale force wind. There is a reason why the sky is so lovely and blue with not a cloud in sight...

It's a cute little place, full of weird rock formations, the most incredible being at the head of the island, in the shape of a fantastic creature of the deep.

Our blissful little break was soured that evening by a domestic on the subject of food. It lasted until well into the next day, continuing during our walk that morning to the lighthouse. The views were fantastic but we were still being grumpy with each other. My DB entertained me with sarky remarks while I skipped up the steep bits in my new zumba fit state and waited patiently at the top just to be annoying. Funnily enough, there were storm clouds gathering out to sea in an appropriate reflection of our mood.

Spot the lighthouse

We were due to head inland towards Olot but we agreed that my DB would drop me off at Figueres station so I could take the train back. I started plotting pleasant things to do with the rest of my weekend...