Touring in Sardinia, May 2009 (report)

blorg

I went touring with my girlfriend two weeks this year- the first a week in Sardinia in May, the second a week in Sicily in October, just back. I will bore you first with Sardinia.

Saturday Alghero-Bosa 49km. Started off cycling down the coast from Alghero to Bosa. Just before we left I met an English group just finishing a tour. The coast road is lovely, great surface, fantastic view and undulating, climbing up to around 375m before dropping back down into Bosa. Passed a very large group of cyclists coming the other direction, could have been a club training run or possibly a sportive or even race.



Sunday Bosa-Tharros-Cabras 94km. From Bosa down to Cabras where we stayed the night and out to Tharros to see the remains of the originally Phoenician city. Quite an easy cycle especially very flat at the end out the Sinis peninsula. Just one real climb up to Cuglieri at 450m. On the climb we met group of Dutch cyclists who were riding road bikes on a supported tour. Although pretty heavily loaded I was able to keep up with one of them. I hid my mounting pain masterfully until he cracked and made his excuses of having to wait for some friends. A small victory but I savoured it. Tharros was mosquito heaven and it was here I first learnt that lycra is no barrier to the determined mosquito.



Monday Cabras-Arborea-Barumini 78km. Heading down the coast from Cabras through Oristano we come to the rather strange town of Arborea. This looks like something out of southern California, everything is manicured and arranged carefully and the whole place had a very neat but artificial feel to it. Do not walk on the grass. It was one of a number of planned towns built by the fascists in the 20s; its original name was apparently Mussolinia but this was changed after the war. Whether Mussolini included the rather good cycle track beside the road I do not know. After lunch we turned inland climbing the foothills of the mountainous interior to reach Barumini, the site of an important nuraghic archeological site. One of the most important nuraghe in Sardina, these are enormous megalithic towers (and often accompanying villages) of undetermined age but some as old as 3,500 BC. This one dated to 1,500 BC. Impressive stuff.



Tuesday Barumini-Seui 57km. We are really getting into the proper mountains now with peaks climbs early on up to 600m and the final climb of the day peaking at 900m. This was a really nice winding climb up from a lake. It was hot. Seui was a pretty nondescript town but fine as a place to get a bed. Around the interior, particularly the Gennargentu mountains, is traditionally bandit country and they make a point of shooting up all the road signs. Not 100% sure whether this is quaint or worrying.

blorg

Wednesday Seui-Arbatax 80km. Leaving Seui we descend around 150m before starting a 300m climb up to over 1,000m, into the Gennargentu National Park. Much of our route today is through the park and it was the nicest scenery and quietest smallest roads of the entire trip. Really fantastic stuff. The initial climb had been a bit worrying but there was basically just a few bumps as we stayed between 800 and 1,000m until a fantastic twisty descent dropping 800m over 15km towards Tortoli and the eastern coast. Found a campsite with a very nice private beach and rented a mobile home.



Thursday Rest Arbatax. Decided to stay in the campsite, go to the beach, yada yada.



Friday Bus to Sassari. We get the bus back across the country to Sassari in the North-West, stopping in Nuoro to change. Sassari is a big enough place but not particularly memorable.

Saturday Sassari-Castelsardo 58km. There is a choice of two routes to Castelsardo but as we will be cycling back along the coast we go over the mountains though Osilo. This also best avoids the main roads out of Sassari. Two main climbs today, the first 650m to Osilo, the second 550m. The second descent and climb was on a "white road" (unpaved.) This really was pretty tough going and I got a puncture on the descent. I have 700x25c tyres and probably 20kg at least on the back as I am carrying everything. In future touring in Italy I will use wider tyres. After that it is back down to the coast as Castelsardo.



Sunday Castelsardo-Porto Torres-Stintino 74km. All along the coast today so no great climbing. Undulating though for much of it, constant rolling. Lots of locals out on the beach along the way. Got slightly lost in the big industrial area west of Porto Torres but after that the Stintino peninsula was very attractive indeed. Nice town too, very picturesque.



Monday Stintino-Alghero airport 62km. After a very pleasant morning on the beautiful beach at the very end of the peninsula we cycled overland on small roads back to the airport. A few hills but nothing over 120m. Part of our route took us along 'Via Fausto Coppi' which tickled. We just about had time to fit in another archeological site and more importantly a visit to the Sella & Mosca estate where the panniers were re-jiggled and the bikes loaded to heaving point with as much wine as possible.



Sardinia was really spectacular for a cycling holiday and I would thoroughly recommend it. Relative to the rest of Italy there probably wasn’t that much 'stuff' in terms of historical sites but it easily makes up for this with the spectacular scenery and frankly perfect cycling roads and terrain.

The only downside really was the food. Food in Italy is generally fantastic even at a cheaper "local" place but no one seems to have told this to the Sardinians. It was the first place in Italy I have been to that we were given a pasta dish that was completely inedible. We had a few excellent meals but they were at more expensive places, around the €150 for two mark. Often you can get good food in Italy from a fiver. Not so in Sardinia.

I can forgive this though as everything else was just so perfect. It’s not a particularly heavily populated island and we were there early in the season. Traffic was very light and drivers very courteous, they seemed used to cyclists and gave plenty of room. The same sort of treatment I’ve experienced in France and Spain and much better than here. I will certainly go back.

Dr.Millah

Wow, sounds like a fantastic trip. Something i hope to do in the coming years. Pictures are great and the scenery looks amazing.

niceonetom

Yet again you make me jealous, blorg.

but

Considering you're doing your touring on your second Ti bike, has it occurred to you to buy your OH something a little less, um, a little less, eh, quaint.

flickerx

Thanks for that, very nice report. I wanted to go to Sardinia before with an Italian ex-girlfriend but she refused on the grounds of cost, which you touched on there, she said that everything is ridiculously expensive because it is a bit of a playground of the rich and famous (I think it is where Berlusconi was photographed swanning around the swimming pool with some young ladies). We went to Napoli (a bit crazy, but really good, amazing cheap food) and Ischia (nice hot springs) instead.

I would imagine Sardinia is pretty unforgiving in terms of the hills. Not sure I would be into doing it laden down with panniers.

Caroline_ie

niceonetom wrote: »

Considering you're doing your touring on your second Ti bike, has it occurred to you to buy your OH something a little less, um, a little less, eh, quaint.

I think Blorgina's bike has sentimental value, however ... Santa has a couple of months to get a her a 2nd bike.
(btw blorg, 'santa doesn't actually exist' is not good excuse )

blorg

@Tom- it's a classic lugged Reynolds 531 tourer! What more could you want! Perfect for touring (lugged steel was my own intention before I ended up getting the Ti.) She is very happy with it. Even has Biopace chainrings. She has been thinking about getting a racer on the bike to work scheme but making a decision on that is a long and complicated process, it may well be this time next year before that happens. I already bought her a bike before but she much prefers that Raleigh.

It was cycled by a pilgrim to Rome in the 1980s and donated to the church at the end. Technically it belongs to her uncle who is a priest who worked in the Vatican at the time. He brought it back to Dublin and she has used it for the last many years, including a pilgrimage to Santiago which got her 1/3 time off purgatory. I got nothing off for being an atheist. So it has spiritual significance.

@flickerx- I wouldn't have said it was expensive at all to be honest. Or at least it didn't have to be. As far as Italy goes it was quite cheap- certainly a lot cheaper than Northern Italy or big cities like Rome or Florence. Cheaper than Sicily too. Southern mainland Italy would probably be about the only place cheaper. Accomodation was inexpensive, especially in the interior; although it is really beautiful in there it is also completely undeveloped and tourists seemed to be a bit of a rarity. I think we typically paid around €40 a night between two of us. If you had a tent you could do it a lot cheaper.

The crazy expensive playground for the rich bit is the Costa Smeralda up in the north east corner. We read about it, it didn't particularly appeal so we skipped entirely. The reference to the one expensive dinner we had was a night we treated ourselves in Alghero. It was excellent food and good value compared to home, we had a very extensive meal with a very nice bottle of wine, you could have eaten in the same restaurant easily for well under half what we paid.

The point was really more about the general level of food you might expect in the local trattoria for much less money; in Sardinia at cheaper places it
was a gamble as to what you would get. Sometimes we did OK but we had some pretty bad food. Elsewhere in Italy the quality has always been excellent across the board, even if you were only spending a fiver. I certainly wouldn't let this put you off, we bought our own food a fair bit for lunch and in the campsite while we were there. It is more just that my expectations are high when it comes to Italian food as it is usually so incredibly good.

Around Naples is very nice all right, great food and certainly the best pizza in the world. We were there a few years ago and ate more pizza than was good for us. Hope you went to Pompeii, that probably still ranks as the single most impressive thing I have ever seen.

As for the panniers and the hills, you can get up anything no problem if you have the right gears. You just go a bit slower. Most of the climbs were extended gentle gradients (under 10%) on really excellent road surfaces. Basically in Sardinia if it was paved at all and not a white road it was generally impeccable smooth tarmac. In Sicily there were far more roads in disrepair although how much of this was caused only at the start of the month by the mudslides I don't know. There were also plenty of flat and gently rolling itineraries around the Sardinian coast which were also beautiful.

gman2k

Thanks for the report Blorg, I was in Sardinia and Sicily a few years back, but not cycling!
Lovely places to go, and great accommodation (cheap at the end of the season)
I keep meaning to get over to Corsica though, I hear the scenery is cracking there!

flickerx

blorg wrote: »

@flickerx- I wouldn't have said it was expensive at all to be honest. Or at least it didn't have to be. As far as Italy goes it was quite cheap- certainly a lot cheaper than Northern Italy or big cities like Rome or Florence. Cheaper than Sicily too. Southern mainland Italy would probably be about the only place cheaper. Accomodation was inexpensive, especially in the interior; although it is really beautiful in there it is also completely undeveloped and tourists seemed to be a bit of a rarity. I think we typically paid around €40 a night between two of us. If you had a tent you could do it a lot cheaper.

The crazy expensive playground for the rich bit is the Costa Smeralda up in the north east corner. We read about it, it didn't particularly appeal so we skipped entirely. The reference to the one expensive dinner we had was a night we treated ourselves in Alghero. It was excellent food and good value compared to home, we had a very extensive meal with a very nice bottle of wine, you could have eaten in the same restaurant easily for well under half what we paid.

The point was really more about the general level of food you might expect in the local trattoria for much less money; in Sardinia at cheaper places it
was a gamble as to what you would get. Sometimes we did OK but we had some pretty bad food. Elsewhere in Italy the quality has always been excellent across the board, even if you were only spending a fiver. I certainly wouldn't let this put you off, we bought our own food a fair bit for lunch and in the campsite while we were there. It is more just that my expectations are high when it comes to Italian food as it is usually so incredibly good.

Around Naples is very nice all right, great food and certainly the best pizza in the world. We were there a few years ago and ate more pizza than was good for us. Hope you went to Pompeii, that probably still ranks as the single most impressive thing I have ever seen.

As for the panniers and the hills, you can get up anything no problem if you have the right gears. You just go a bit slower. Most of the climbs were extended gentle gradients (under 10%) on really excellent road surfaces. Basically in Sardinia if it was paved at all and not a while road it was generally impeccable smooth tarmac. In Sicily there were far more roads in disrepair although how much of this was caused only at the start of the month by the mudslides I don't know. There were also plenty of flat and gently rolling itineraries around the Sardinian coast which were also beautiful.

What are "gears" ? etc etc.
Yeah I had a hybird/touring bike there a few years back which I did a few days around the west of Ireland on (Galway to Ennis via the Galway and Clare coasts) with the panniers on the back, I didnt find it a problem. I was under the impression that Sardinia had quite a mountainous interior - but I think I am confusing it with Corsica, my main source of information on the island being "Asterix in Corsica" so perhaps I should do some more serious investigation. I think I would like to do a bit of cycling on Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily.

I dont think I could be bothered with camping, I'm too old for it at this stage, I'm from the 'burbs and I wasnt exactly encouraged to be at one with nature when I was a kid. I never sleep right in a tent, I'd rather find just even a cheap auberge/hostel with a bed to put the head down, and a shower to wash off the sweat, especially after a day of cycling.

I was the same as yourself overdosing on the pizza when I went to Napoli. I dont eat any dairy products but my Italian girlfriend made me bend my rules, she said otherwise I'd end up eating nothing and would miss out. Normally eating loads of bread makes me fat and lethargic, but the pizza bases there are so thin - proper order. Amazing food, extremely cheap. I wouldnt fancy cycling (or even driving) in Napoli though. I lost count of the times that some lunatic driver nearly knocked us down. OK maybe it was three or four, and it wasnt that close, but I still felt that the streets were a lot more dangerous for pedestrians. I dont think I saw a single cyclist in my time there, and I would have been looking out for them. We didnt go to Pompeii, but we went to Herculaneum instead, which is the same deal, just with less crowds.

barrabus

great stuff blorg..
when you putting up our holiday report

blorg

@barrabus- I'll get to that after I do Sicily. Saving the best for last.

@flickerx- there is no denying Sardinia has a hilly interior but there are also substantial flat bits, probably more flat bits as options than in Corsica or Sicily. But where's the fun in flat bits. Drivers around Naples are interesting all right, there are more dents on cars around there than I have seen anywhere else but i think this is mainly from negotiating down small streets than actually having serious accidents. At the same time there is a bit of a method to how it all works, there seems to be less of a concept of right of way than a general sort of give-and-take, sometimes you have to just press out at a junction and the traffic will actually stop for you. I get the impression with Italian drivers in general that they drive slower and more carefully.

@gman2k- I would like to go to Corsica too. We met some Germans I think it was on Sardinia who had been there as well and they did prefer Sardinia though. Can't recall exactly why, whether it was driving standards, the lack of development or something else. Only one way to find out I guess.

Gasco

Thanks for the report and particularly the photos - my wife and I are regular visitors to that part of the world - we got married in Bosa last summer. I always thought that the spin from Alghero to Bosa would be excellent but never got around to hiring bikes. Interested to hear how easy / difficult it was to transport the gear (am assuming that you flew with Mr. O'Leary??)

I see you made it to the east coast (avoiding the dreaded cost smerelda), am hoping to head down that way soon - I hear Cala Gonone (spelling?) is particularly lovely.

Oh for some sun, a glass of Cannanou, or a chilled bottle of Ichnusa, or both.

Saxobank

Thanks blorg for the post, fabulous pictures, seems like a cycling journey through sardinia is well worth it. Would love to do something like this in the next couple of years.