Once in Sardegna we found the rental car place for Thrifty rental cars. The queue was about 50 deep and not moving. They had bundled about 5 different rental car brands into the one service desk. Meanwhile all the other rental car places had no lines. Heidi held the line while I went to check prices in the other places as we were keen to get the holidays started but the other rental companies I checked with were charging about twice what we were quoted. Anyway about 90 minutes later we finaly got our mighty steed, a Fiat Panda.
While en route to our first destination we saw a lady chatting to this girl on a vespa in the middle of an offramp. I first thought "typical Italians having a chat in the middle of the road", but on closer inspection we found they had broken down. Anyway the girl spoke English and told us that the older lady needed to make it to the big boat that was off in the distance. We agreed we'd take her back to the Porto at Olbia. We guessed that she had been having lunch with some friends and needed to get back to the ship or she would litterally miss the boat. We followed signs back to the Porto and she wanted to give us a 5 euro tip but we were like it is nessun problema.
With our good deed for the day done we drove through the Sardinian country side, which reminded me a bit of Mallorca and soon arrived at our destination Hotel Tabby in Golfo Aranci. Heidi told me she first thought it was "Goflo Arancini" as in the rice balls and then I couldn't get that pronunciation out of my mind whenever I saw a sign. It also made me hungry for breaded rice balls. It was a pity they weren't tipici of this regione.
After checking in we went to pretty much the only place that we could see that was open on the beach and tried to get a late lunch. The only thing they were serving was frozen pizza or caprese salad. It was not a hard choice. After a swim and a laze on the the beach we went for a walk around town. It was a pretty sleepy village and there wasn't much going on. There was this weird fun park where it was Christmas every day of the year. I am not sure what they do with it for the rest of the time but I completely agree with them that it is dumb putting up and taking down xmas decorations every year. These guys have just decided to leave them up.
We had dinner in the same place we had the late lunch. I had some tipici vongole with linguine and Heidi had the same clams but with a local rice shaped pasta. I was disappointed to find there was no Sardines in the tipici di Sardi section of the menu.
The next day we went to the beach for a swim after breakfast. I wanted some good tipici Sardi food so we asked reception where to go and the girl there said to go to this place at the next town north called Locanda Rudalza in Porto Rotondo. It was not really in town but we noticed in Sardigna there were a lot of places a bit out of the way doing "Agriturismo" which is where they grow the stuff or it's sourced from the immediate area. Anyway we sat down and they showed us the menu which was just actually a list of what you're having with a fixed price of 35 Euros. We hadn't really been hungry since the ridiculous amount of food from our exhorbidant Milano lunch but we persevered anyway.
Out come some starters, there was this amazing dish Mazza Frissa, I cannot imagine how much cream they used to make semolina flour taste so awesome but it must have been alot. Also the zuchini and pork meatballs were fantastic. Next came ravioli with potato inside which we saw a bit in Sardigna, gnocchi with tomato and pork sauce and some weird thing they called "dry soup" it was kind of like a cheese cassorolle. Next came the dish we had been waiting for all day the Porchetto(decribed as small pig cooked for several hours) it was awesome. Afterwards when we thought we were going to explode they brought out a panacotta with Sardinian honey and a bottle of this Sardinian liqueur called Mirto. I had to be pretty restrained as we drove, but the bottle was about 350mL and they leave it for you. Also we got through a half litre of their wine and they just brought out another half litre. The local Sardinian red wine is called "cannonau" but it is the same as grenache. After rolling out of there we were so full we just had a picnic on the beach with wine for dinner.
A couple of days into Sardinia and we have not even seen Sardines on the menu. I am pretty sure this is why the Italians call Sardinia Sardegna, it is because they know there's no sardines here. Luckily the place is amazingly beautiful otherwise it would be a complete disappointment.
While en route to our first destination we saw a lady chatting to this girl on a vespa in the middle of an offramp. I first thought "typical Italians having a chat in the middle of the road", but on closer inspection we found they had broken down. Anyway the girl spoke English and told us that the older lady needed to make it to the big boat that was off in the distance. We agreed we'd take her back to the Porto at Olbia. We guessed that she had been having lunch with some friends and needed to get back to the ship or she would litterally miss the boat. We followed signs back to the Porto and she wanted to give us a 5 euro tip but we were like it is nessun problema.
With our good deed for the day done we drove through the Sardinian country side, which reminded me a bit of Mallorca and soon arrived at our destination Hotel Tabby in Golfo Aranci. Heidi told me she first thought it was "Goflo Arancini" as in the rice balls and then I couldn't get that pronunciation out of my mind whenever I saw a sign. It also made me hungry for breaded rice balls. It was a pity they weren't tipici of this regione.
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| Hotel view was alright |
After checking in we went to pretty much the only place that we could see that was open on the beach and tried to get a late lunch. The only thing they were serving was frozen pizza or caprese salad. It was not a hard choice. After a swim and a laze on the the beach we went for a walk around town. It was a pretty sleepy village and there wasn't much going on. There was this weird fun park where it was Christmas every day of the year. I am not sure what they do with it for the rest of the time but I completely agree with them that it is dumb putting up and taking down xmas decorations every year. These guys have just decided to leave them up.
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| Couldn't capture it all but it was a pretty big space to be used for just once a year. |
The next day we went to the beach for a swim after breakfast. I wanted some good tipici Sardi food so we asked reception where to go and the girl there said to go to this place at the next town north called Locanda Rudalza in Porto Rotondo. It was not really in town but we noticed in Sardigna there were a lot of places a bit out of the way doing "Agriturismo" which is where they grow the stuff or it's sourced from the immediate area. Anyway we sat down and they showed us the menu which was just actually a list of what you're having with a fixed price of 35 Euros. We hadn't really been hungry since the ridiculous amount of food from our exhorbidant Milano lunch but we persevered anyway.
Out come some starters, there was this amazing dish Mazza Frissa, I cannot imagine how much cream they used to make semolina flour taste so awesome but it must have been alot. Also the zuchini and pork meatballs were fantastic. Next came ravioli with potato inside which we saw a bit in Sardigna, gnocchi with tomato and pork sauce and some weird thing they called "dry soup" it was kind of like a cheese cassorolle. Next came the dish we had been waiting for all day the Porchetto(decribed as small pig cooked for several hours) it was awesome. Afterwards when we thought we were going to explode they brought out a panacotta with Sardinian honey and a bottle of this Sardinian liqueur called Mirto. I had to be pretty restrained as we drove, but the bottle was about 350mL and they leave it for you. Also we got through a half litre of their wine and they just brought out another half litre. The local Sardinian red wine is called "cannonau" but it is the same as grenache. After rolling out of there we were so full we just had a picnic on the beach with wine for dinner.
A couple of days into Sardinia and we have not even seen Sardines on the menu. I am pretty sure this is why the Italians call Sardinia Sardegna, it is because they know there's no sardines here. Luckily the place is amazingly beautiful otherwise it would be a complete disappointment.
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