People and culture

We have been staying at a rural B&B for the past three days. Here they are called “agriturismo” and are very common, although, this B&B, I believe, is far above average.  It is a farm and orchard with a restaurant and ten rooms to rent. Each room has its own parking spot, entrance, and covered patio. The restaurant is impressive. One sitting at 8pm each night, reservation only and sold out during our time there. The menu is extensive but with a featured daily selection. A starter, first course, second course, and desert with many side dishes included and many drink options. The food is wonderful.  Not just the B&B people, but others from the area show up for dinner, served outside on a large open deck with distant views. We are the only people for whom English is their first language. Surrounding conversation is overwhelmingly in Italian, although on this island there is a local dialect used sometimes.

Dinner restaurant at our Agriturismo NE of Cagliari.  Every night it was sold out. Excellent food and drink.

The B&B is hosted by a family, and their sons are servers at the restaurant. Mother and grandmother are the bosses.  Everyone has a high opinion of this family.  We talked to two German couples staying here. One couple said they have been coming here for 15 years.  The other couple comes for extended stays; their current visit is planned until November.  The dinner atmosphere is like a large family gathering.  We have been treated extremely well; they have assisted with our missing luggage and laundry needs.

Since we can only guess at the menu, we have been coached on selections. I never knew that pasta and zucchini together could taste so good.  Fresh healthy food must be part of longevity.  Sardinia is known as a location where people frequently live past 100 y.o.  Once we mentioned my lactose intolerance, it was taken care of.  Local goats and sheep provide options to dairy products from cows.  Fresh fruit, figs and plums, from their orchard are included with every breakfast.

The only drawback to this location is that internet is only available when we are outside on our porch. fortunately, there are no bugs, and the weather is warm, so sitting out on the porch in evening time is comfortable.  After heading back to Cagliari to pick up our luggage, the next day we drive north 160 km. (100 miles) to our next stop.

The beach at Villasimius.  Problem was that we had no clothes other than what we had put on three days ago for our flight from Glasgow.  Fortunately, we found a small store here where we could get some shorts and tops; we didn't want to go back to the congestion of Cagliari for shopping.  There are many nice beaches on Sardinia.

 I am still amazed at the technology we have at our disposal nowadays.  Back in the 1970’s, when Dawn and I visited the Pioneer Inn at Lahaina, Maui, reservations were completed by mail.  When we visited a friend then in southern Mexico at Morelia, correspondence was done by mail.  Now we can communicate anywhere in the world, almost instantaneously, by email.  GPS is here to guide us.  Google brings us an amazing knowledge base and can even translate languages.

We don’t quite have that self-driving car yet.  In fact, GPS occasionally provides mistaken guidance, and Google can have an out-of-date data source.  One day on this trip, GPS told us to “turn left” at a point which would have had us hit a guardrail then go down an embankment.  The actual turn was almost a kilometer distant.  Our electronic signal can be weak or missing, but compared to what we had back then, we are in heaven. I like to have an overall actual map for initial orientation, and I still read street signs and look for prominent structures for confirmation of position.