In which Sid and Doris set out again and have a High Paw day, back on the road again along the swanky Costa Smerelda
Sid and Doris said goodbye to England-on-the-Med to start the three day ride to Porto Torres. When we took the bikes out on Thursday to check them over we were not much enthused. This morning we set out with a super-long case of cafe legs. When you stop for a pie it takes a few minutes for the legs to turn over properly. This morning it seemed to take about an hour.
Sid the food monitor pulled us up at a cafe at a junction with a beach road. This coast was popularised by the Aga Khan in the 1960s. In quick succession we saw a cut down Fiat 500 beach car (in baby blue with wicker basket and chrome rails), a drop top Mercedes G Wagen, several Citroen Meharis and an Innocenti Mini. Even the prices in the cafes tell you this is not Lesbos.
Our route takes us through Olbia with its port (including an elegant three-masted ship) and airport. While mapping the ride Doris was not able to dissuade the route from performing a pirouette such as you might perform if you had transgressed in a sailing race. After much head scratching as to the road required we realised that we really were going to use a clover leaf up unto a new road over the bay. On these quite busy roads it is hard to stop the adrenaline boosting your work rate so we are practising our Extreme Energy Conservation, even when provoked by traffic.
This is a mediumly hilly day (with 722 metres of climb in 84 kilometres) which gives time to see the Swiss registered Rolls Royce, German XJS convertible, Porsche 911 Targas and convertible BMWs. In amongst these there are many local cars laying smoke, especially up the hills. Do they not have an emissions check in the MOT or do you just give Franco the garagiste a bottle of grappa and take your ticket?
Some wall art in a snack stop caught Sid’s eye.
The language here is not quite Italian. Sardinia was ruled by Spain and there seems to be some Spanish in the vocabulary. Maybe that is why we have Crema Catalana on the menu.
From soon after the unification of Italy (1861) there were plans to modernise the island. The railways were a key part of that. There was more building during the 1920s and 1930s (another New Deal). The towns of Mussolinia (now called Arborea), Fertilia and Carbonia (great names) were built from scratch, though the first of these took over an earlier plan to drain the malarial marshes that had kept Sardinians from the coast. These were New Towns (cf Letchworth) built in a style now called Italian Rationalism with ‘modernised’ architecture. Sid would like to see these, but needs to discover where they are. (See the article by Ruth Lo on The architecture and planning of Fascist New Towns in Sardinia.) An out of season visit may be called for.
This war memorial is from the 1915-18 war but is also memorable because if Sid hadn’t stopped to photograph it he’d have had to go further back to the previous cafe to retrieve his phone.
Reunited, on the way down into Palau we are once again running alongside an abandoned railway that ran down to the dock. PIC Once the roads were improved and the trucks could race around the island they probably were redundant. For a long time the island was essentially a primary economy exporting timber (the island will take a a lot of reforesting), mining for lead, silver and zinc as well as livestock farming. There has also been a refining industry which has left large areas too polluted to build on. They never really got into fishing or living on the coast at all because of the piracy and malaria. Now a large proportion of the island’s income seems to come from tourism. The pirates are onshore.
The hotels are near full (we are booked ahead for the next two nights). Our Hotel del Molo was complet until a cancellation released a room when we booked just last night. The receptionist is also a cycle tourer and quickly made room for the bikes inside and poured juice and water into us until our eyes less resembled raisins from the heat of the afternoon. We rewarded her in our usual way, by festooning the room with cycle washing.
Blog central has been set up in the pleasure port where sail boats and stink pots are offering rides out to the Maddelana Islands. The whole sail scene leads Doris to suggest a bit of flotilla-ing. But maybe we will be out with Mark and Carolyn before then.
So we are back on the bikes, under way and making way again and seem happy at the idea of another five week on the road.