Our hotel room window

Thank you for letting me get my Debbie Downer whining out of the way. Now we can move on to the real reasons to visit Italy. As you will see, there was a visual feast at all times. 

Our first stop was the island of Sardinia. The friends I traveled with had relatives with a vacation house there. Unfortunately, it was too full for us to stay there, but we found accommodations at the lovely Hotel Altura close by. I would highly recommend this hotel. It was clean, basic yet charming, and the price was right.

The view while peeking outside of the hotel room window

Our first beach experience, not too shabby.

Perfect sand! Big enough to easily shake off!

Food!!!!!

No matter where you are, there is nothing like a home cooked meal! Our gracious hostess went out of her way to make me something gluten-free. It was delicious! Some sort of chicken curry over rice. I'm eternally grateful!

The aftermath of our lunch with friends and family. There is nothing like fresh Italian grown tomatoes with real deal balsamic vinegar! My mouth is watering just from the memories.

I was SO excited to spot this Farinata di Ceci sign…do you know what that means?!!! Socca!

They even had a little sign with the ingredients listed! Unfortunately this ended up to be a HUGE disappointment. This socca tasted sour. Blech! The socca at Nizza in NYC is much tastier. Someday I'll have to tour Italy more extensively in order to research Italian socca further and report back to you. [wink]

We took a day trip to the isle of Maddalena. It was great fun to explore, drive around and beach hop. Just when you thought you had left the most beautiful beach of your life there was another one waiting for you right around the next bend.


 

Near the food stand here at this turn around point there was a hippie dude that sold his hand made jewelry out of his van. I bought some really neato earrings from him.

See the tiny people for scale?

Anyhoo, he told us about a nearby hike to a secret cove called Valle Della Luna. 

This view was one of our rewards for the hike…

….and this too!

Signs of life

People live here in the rocks! When we tried to tell our hosts over dinner that we saw rock houses and signs that people lived there, my friends cousin exclaimed, "Freakatonis!!!" [ha ha] We looooved this new addition to our Italian vocabulary and put it to good use!

There was another cave dwelling at the top of that rock. Very Flintstones, eh?

The other joke from this trip that still gets used on occasion is, "Go back to Sassari!" when someone says something sassy. Sassari is a town in Sardinia. I know, we are easily amused.

So, there you go! I hope you have enjoyed our tour of Sardinia and Maddalena. Next up….Rome!!