We are currently en route from the island of Sardinia to our final Italian port of Livorno, gateway to Florence and Pisa. We left at 3:30pm and will be travelling through to dock on Monday morning, with a full day at sea, tomorrow, Sunday. We have booked a tour off the boat for Florence/Pisa to make sure we get to see all the spots Mum wants to visit, although disappointingly, being a Monday all the museums will be closed, so maybe no statue of David, not event the replica. We will see.
But to today. As Cagliari was an originally unscheduled stop (replacing Tunisia) we knew little about what to do here. Andrew and Maxine had asked if we wanted to taxi share again, we did, so we went off a brochure and headed out to Barrimuni, the site of a 1500BC fort; the most ancient we have seen on our travels.
Sardinia is extremely dry and the drive was long and not particularly scenic. Our guide Roberto was very personable but not a patch on Mario lol. A stop in a small village to look at the murals proved interesting, but that was about it for the journey there.
The ruins were interesting, and we were able to venture down the steep and winding steps inside the original tower. We had had to wait for a guide before we started though, and then have a shortened tour to make it back to Cagliari in order to see the sites there, so we didn't get to see/hear quite as much as we might have had if time had not again been pressing.
One of the sites in Cagliari turned out to be pink flamingoes. Guess who decided not to take her zoom on this particular trip? I felt so jilted and angry at myself for leaving it back in the boat... I could have had some spoonbill moments for sure. My 24-105 just wasn't long enough. Had I done my research before leaving the boat things could have been much different... So maybe I have to go to the zoo when I'm back to get a flamingo fix.
The flamingoes lived in the salt ponds, (for desalination, not salt production) and there were heaps of them. We also visited the local beach, 10km long and quite nice, and apparently nowhere near as good as the ones up the coast, which are supposedly Carribean-esque.
We ended our time in the town with lunch at a quaint restaurant, where Mum and I shared antipasti cured meats and cheeses, and I had an excellent ravioli.
Back in board, we joined up with another couple and tried our hand at team trivia again. Slightly better score of 8 this time, although did not get the correct answer about the colour of flags flown in NZ (and Canadian) beaches that are flown to represent a clean beach. Anyone out there know this? It was news to me.
Looking forward to some down time tomorrow, it's a tough life being a tourist 😉 🍕 🍹
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