26th to October 4th


We are in Sardinia! (9/26)The passage from Menorca was 30 hrs.( I will miss
their DELICIOUS CHEESE!!) We anchored in Carloforte, Sardinia on the Isola
Di Sant Pierto, the first night....plenty of room...good holding! Next
morning we left for Cagliari...a bit long for a day trip but we made it even
though a good part of the trip was into the wind. We even had to tack a few
times!

The first day there we rode our bikes and did some errands and had lunch.
Rudy had HORSE(Cavallo)! and I had seafood salad. (I tasted Rudy's horse
which wasn't bad.. it tasted a little like beef, but the image of Trigger
kept coming to mind!!)

The next two days we rented a car and toured the southern coast visiting the
cities of Villasimus and then traveling up the east coast to Arrubiu. There
we saw a Nuraghi site and a village called Su Putzu both from Middle Bronze
Age.  The Nuraghi sites were built during the Middle Bronze Age and these
people traveled almost to the middle of the island and built there villages
of stone on a high hill very similar to the Menorcans. From there we went to
Serri where we visited another Nuraghi site.  This was two huge areas with
many different structures (church, forum, a couple of temples, fortese and a
well), but the structures were very incomplete.  However, at Su Nuraxi at
Barumini which dates from 1500 BC, the structures were almost all intact.
It was a smaller area of buildings than Serri, but here we could go inside
the main structure which had five towers each used for a different purpose
(defense, King and Queen's quarters, water, food storage on the North side,
etc.)  Also, outside the main structure were over 80 dwellings including a
bakery and a flour mill. We then went on to the cities of Villanovaforru,
Sandara and Sanhuri where we saw a Thirteenth Century Castle.  This Castle
is the only one still habitable of the 88 built in Sardinia. We stopped to
look at churches and took pictures of some intersting buildings and scenery.
We had lunch near Orroli by a Dam.  It was 5 km from the road into the
Nuraghi site at Arrubiu.  We were the only people there and we had great
service and a delicious meal!! (no horse!)

The next day we went to the towns of Sarroch and the ancient city of Nora.
This site was different because it was on the shore jutting out into the sea
on the south coast and not inland. In it's day it was the island's most
important city, a role it continued to enjoy under the Romans.  In AD 238,
Nora became the capital of the Roman province of Sardinia. At this site, we
saw Roman baths decorated with mosaics, a theater (we were on center
stage!), a forum, mosaics in the hot and cold baths by the ocean, a church
(where we sat under a palm tree and had lunch) paved roads and the city's
water system and sewage systems. All of the archaeological sites we visited
the last two days were still being excavated and they were still discovering
ancient objects. We then drove to the towns of Santadi, Villaperuccio and my
favorite town... San Separate!! This town is a living museum with murals and
sculptures by the local artist Pinuccio Sciola.  Some of the murals were so
life-like, we had to take a second look to figure out which person was
painted and which ones were alive!!!

The next three days we rode our bikes in the town visiting the Roman
Amphitheater, Cathedral, Torre dell'Elefante, Villa di Tigellio (as Rudy
would say, another pile of rocks!) where there was a great bicycle store.
We had lunch in out door cafes and people watched!!  We also saw hundreds of
Flamingos.  At first we thought they were buoys... and then they took their
heads out of the water and stood up!!!  This is the area where they come
every year.

We also met a British family (two young daughters 16,18) that were moored
next to us and we traded books, they borrowed our video tapes and we taught
them to play dominoes...and then we had to say good-bye which is still hard
for me to do!