I saw the two women chatting as soon as I entered the town. One was standing on the street in the shade of a low building; the other, an older lady dressed in black, was responding from her third-floor balcony. Together they formed a charming first impression of Cuglieri, a small commune I’d passed through while driving along the western coast of the Italian island of Sardinia.
Nothing else was stirring on that sleepy Sunday afternoon in late September — until I bumped into three friends sitting on a bench: Antonio, Giovanni Maria and Renzo, their combined ages well over 200. I introduced myself and, when word got out that I’m half Sicilian, Antonio, the tallest gentleman, smiled and shouted: “Ah, anche tu isolana sei!” — So you’re an islander, too!
His exclamation encapsulated the separateness of life on Sardinia, which lies in the Mediterranean some 120 miles west of mainland Italy. To refer to the rest of country, locals here say “il continente” — the continent.
In other words: Those 120 miles might as well be an entire ocean.
My partner and I had formulated a simple plan: to fly to the Sardinian capital of Cagliari, on the southern coast, rent a car and drive the perimeter of the island counterclockwise, following as many seaside roads as possible. We also wanted to swim, hike and visit some of the smaller islands off the coast. Sardinia has about 1,150 miles of shoreline, though not all of it is accessible.
The panoramic road between Cagliari and Villasimius — a relatively short drive along part of the southern edge of the island — is stunningly beautiful. It follows the sea almost religiously, passing through villages and, at times, bringing you within feet from the water.
After a restful night in Tortolì, having made it about halfway up the eastern side of the island, we allowed ourselves a little inland detour to walk up two gentle mountains: Monte Fumai (4,318 feet) and Monte Novo San Giovanni (4,285 feet), both within the Montes Forest area of the National Park of the Gulf of Orosei and Gennargentu. Since the trail began at around 3,300 feet, it was an easy and pleasant hike among spiky rocks, the only sounds coming from cowbells in the fields below.
Back on the coast, a short ride north took us to Cala Finanza, a small port where we rented a kayak and paddled about four miles to Isola Tavolara, a small island near Sardinia’s northeast corner. Tavolara is long and narrow; its imposing limestone and granite cliff faces soar above the sea. When it first comes into view, it gives the impression of a huge tortoise carapace emerging from the water, or of the sail of a Spinosaurus.
This strange island has been the object of many legends. According to one, Tavolara is the ship that the Phaeacians gave to Ulysses so he could return home — and that the angry Poseidon turned into stone. A NATO military base occupies part of the island, which shooed away the few remaining inhabitants in 1962. When we visited, only a few of the landowners were residing there part-time to handle the tourists.
Near Sardinia’s northernmost point, the Maddalena archipelago, with its heavenly crystal-clear waters and white-sand beaches, offers numerous trails among porous rocks and low shrubs — including the one we completed: a toasty three-mile hike on the rocky island of Caprera, not far from where the Italian Renaissance hero Giuseppe Garibaldi spent the last 26 years of his life before he died in 1882.
A drive westward at sunset led us to Porto Torres, where we boarded a one-hour ferry to Asinara, an irregularly shaped island — about 20 square miles in total — with no permanent residents. The island features dramatic cliffs, wide inlets and small beaches and is known for its population of shy wild dwarf albino donkeys, which we saw from a distance as we toured by e-bike.
Continuing the loop, and now southbound, we arrived at Capo Caccia, a headland within a regional natural park, for a short but demanding afternoon hike along towering cliffs. Staring at the waves as they crashed on the rocks was so mesmerizing that I returned at sunrise to watch them all over again.
Then came the colorful town of Bosa, set along the Temu River, the only navigable waterway in Sardinia, followed by a flurry of picturesque stops in the rolling hills of olive oil and Malvasia wine land: Modolo, Magomadas, Tresnuraghes, Sennariolo, our Cuglieri.
Carrying on southbound, we couldn’t help but stop along the Sinis Peninsula, a spit of land about halfway down Sardinia’s western coast. At its southernmost point is a track in a stunning location: the teardrop-shaped strip of land called Capo San Marco, with the sea on both sides, agitated on the west and calm on the east, and adjacent to the archaeological site of Tharros, a Phoenician trading town later occupied by Carthaginians and Romans.
From Portovesme, nearing the island’s southwestern corner, a ferry carried us to San Pietro Island, also known as Carloforte, the name of its only town. Carloforte is famous for the production of bottarga di tonno, the salted, cured and pressed eggs of Atlantic bluefin tuna, a beloved delicacy. In the many local restaurants it’s possible to try tuna heart, tuna prosciutto and other tuna products — tuna eggs, salted tuna, tuna tartare, tuna pasta, grilled tuna and fatty tuna. As delicious as all of this sounds, and as sustainable as the local tuna fishery — in operation since 1654 — claims to be, the bluefin tuna population is dwindling worldwide.
San Pietro is a volcanic island and offers spectacular views of and from its imposing, crumbly cliffs. We reached a short hiking path, Geosito No. 5, by touring the 20-square-mile island on a rented scooter.
Our last day on Sardinia began quietly in the town of Calasetta’s small port, on the island of Sant’Antioco. From there we drove slowly back toward Cagliari along the southwestern coast, watching our last sunset from a small jewel of a beach, Porto Tramatzu, and then zigzagging on to Domus de Maria. The name — “Home of Maria” — reminded me of an album (“La buona novella”) by Fabrizio de André, the Italian singer and songwriter who had a touching relationship with Sardinia, his home and onetime prison.
And so we drove toward the end, the beginning, in a synaptic euphoria, through small towns and villages, sometimes just a handful of old houses scattered on a hill, split in two by the road.
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The post The Sparkle of Separateness: Circling Sardinia by Car appeared first on New York Times.
