Sardinia is not the easiest place to explore by motorhome. There are only six places that might be considered a city or a large town - Cagliari, Oristano, Olbia, Alghero, Nuoro and Sassari. They are well connected by dual carriageways and well maintained main roads. Everywhere else the road system is very haphazard and in the mountains and coastal hills most are very narrow and bendy.
The older I get the more risk averse I become so far as where I am willing to drive the motorhome. Ten ago when touring the Peloponnese I would happily drive down a donkey track ignoring the squeaking sound of chunky olive branches scraping the side of the van. Narrow village streets with alarming overhanging balconies I regarded as a challenge rather than a hazard. Two smashed wing mirrors later and a decade of tricky moments and near misses have taken their toll. Our aim these days is to stick to main roads and use the ebikes or public transport to explore localities.
This meant rethinking my initial plan to circumnavigate Sardinia stopping in a mix of beach parking and campsites. The minor roads that hug the coast looked challenging when we zoomed in on them. What we decided to do instead was to adopt a patch approach, concentrating on the area south of Olbia, then Alghero and the area northwest of it, heading next to the far southwest corner, maybe taking a bus trip into Cagliari, then finishing with a few days on the east coast near Muravera or Arbatax.
The disadvantage is that it means doubling back from Alghero towards Sassari to enable us to pick up the dual carriageway south towards Oristano and Cagliari.
For some reason we have struggled with supermarket shopping, our needs are simple, an easily accessible supermarket without a height barrier and an empty enough car park to easily accommodate a moho. Should be simple, but it's not. We were bewailing this when a Eurospin icon mysteriously popped-up on Google maps seemingly in the middle of nowhere just off the next junction.
Big empty car park, great supermarket - a bit of a discount brand like Aldi....
It doesn't take a lot to make us happy!
Both on the journey from Olbia to Sassari and today, southwards to Oristano we have been struck by an uncanny resemblance between inland Sardinia and Portugal's Alentejo. It's the same mix of scrubby garrigue and stone strewn fields, patches of eucalyptus and pine, scattered, depopulated looking hamlets and abandoned farms. What they have in common, aside that they are broadly in the same Mediterranean climatic zone, is steady depopulation for at least a century. Just how serious a problem this is for Sardinia can be seen by comparing it with the neighbouring island of Sicily, which is only marginally larger. Whereas Sardinia has a population density of around 70 people per square kilometre Sicily's is more than five times that. The sense of space and the need to 'get away from it all' may be part of the island's visitor appeal but the economic decline and decay of communities poses an existential challenge for native Sardinians.
I suppose it would be possible to reach the southwest of the island in one go from Alghero, but we don't do rushing about these days. Initially we looked at overnighting in a car park with a service point in the suburbs of Oristano, but the reviews were lukewarm. Gill found an alternative, Camping Bella Sardegna, on the coast near Torre del Pozzo, again it meant doubling back north again for a few kilometres.
We arrived at 1.15pm, just after reception closed. The 1 - 3pm. 'quiet time' is more or less universal in Sardinia, though most supermarkets and petrol stations do stay open.
The site is beautifully situated in a pine forest which covers the dunes.
The huge beach is about half a kilometre away down a sandy track. It's a wild, empty stretch of coastline. Even though the wind was light the surf was considerable. Certainly too rough to paddleboard, a few years ago I would have been happy enough to swim in such conditions, these days I prefer flat calm.
We have had two gloriously sunny days, however the dense canopy of the pine forest has shaded us from it. En masse umbrella pines make magical woodlands - very 'Where the Wild Things Are' if you mentally erase the campervans.
After dark a full 'hunters' moon heightened the Sendak effect.
Gill has a more sinister take on the place. Odd small, whitewashed stone huts are dotted around the site. They look a little spectral after dark, I can see where she is coming from when she says they have a Lynchian vibe, add an electrostatic crackle and the scene gets very Twin Peaks.
Travel long enough and you do sense that reality may be a loosening skein prone to unravel at any moment.
All over Sardinia campsites are closing, this one in three days time. It's got an end of season vibe. The place mainly consists of self catering chalets and erected tents, all empty.
There's still a few motorhomes scattered about, in truth they are a sideline. Facilities like the service point and chemical toilet emptying are inconveniently situated. The location is great, but the services poor. Thankfully it's just a two day stopover.
Next day - southwards once more, our destination two small islands near the southwest tip of Sardinia, Sant Antioco and Sant Pietro. I've been dreaming about visiting them for a very long time.
I can't remember exactly when we first were connected to the internet, around 1997 I would guess. It was a very different place back then, more a 'globe of villages' than the global dystopian metropolis it has become. We used a niche Norwegian search engine called 'alltheweb', Google wasn't even a thing. Just browsing was an end in itself. We became fascinated by web cams, the fact we could watch a summer sunrise on a New Zealand beach while a full moon glistened outside on a frosty garden in Derbyshire seemed astonishing.
We had four favourites - a web cam in the Hogs Breath Saloon in Key West, one in Times Square, New York, the cam broadcasting from the beach car park in Kaiteriteri on New Zealand's south island and images streamed from a small marina near Sant Antioco in Sardinia.
Over the years we managed to visit three of our pre-millennia virtual hotspots for real. Times Square New York in 2002, The Hogs Breath Saloon, Key West in 2007, and Kaiteriteri in 2018. Finally in the next couple of days we aim find the marina on Sant Antioco - I'm convinced it was in Calasetta. We shall see.
Before then we have to get there, Sardinia is the second biggest Island in the Mediterranean - roughly the size of Wales. It's a 185km drive from Torre del Pozzo to Sant Antioco, most of it on autostrada but topped and tailed by more local roads.
The top was ok, the tail less so, especially as I missed a turning about 10 Kms north of Cagliari and ended up on a more minor road than planned. The 'yellow road' turned out to be 85kms of potholes and crumbling verges , nevertheless it was a beautiful drive through hill country overlooked by craggy peaks.
Sant Antioco once was an island, now it's more of an isthmus, connected to 'mainland' Sardinia these days by a causeway and a short metal girder bridge. We were e heading for a remote campsite in the southwest corner but needed supplies. Sant Antioco town has a Lidl with a big moho friendly car park. I wandered its aisles in wonder - mixed nuts! basic muesli! blueberries! Greek yogurt - my breakfast essentials replenished. I am a simple soul at heart, It doesn't take much to please me.
The final 5kms to Camping Tonnara took us down a single track road that hugged the spectacular coast - very Peloponnese we agreed.
It was true it did feel like southern Greece, deep blue sea, sun bleached landscape, gnarled olive trees and at the end of the narrow, twisting road a steeply terraced campsite with its own little cove, entirely occupied by Germans.
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