Cagliari – June 6, 2023
Jun 22nd, 2023 by rallyadmin
We’re
up at 4:00 AM, washed, brushed and packed. Down to the lobby at 4:25
AM. There’s no taxi but we’re early. I remind the night clerk
that we have a taxi for 4:30. He checks the notebook. Calls the radio
taxi company. Waits on hold for a minute or two. Calls again. Speaks
to someone this time. A few minutes later a taxi arrives. We load up
and we’re off to the airport.
Or somewhere. There’s a woman in the right front seat when the taxi arrives. And the taxi driver has his foot in it, blasting through red lights with abandon. “Drive it like you stole it.” A quick left onto a side street then another quick right onto a smaller side street. Just as I’m about to “remind” the driver that we’re going to the airport, he comes o a quick stop. The woman passenger jumps out. “Ciao.” And we’re off again.
The whole ride was just a blur of quick turns and blown red lights. Fortunately, there wasn’t much traffic and the driver made remarkable time to the airport. He gets to the departure area in the front of the terminal, stops and gets out our bags. “How much?” “Twenty five euro.” (An honest Neapolitan taxi driver at 4:30 AM. Who’d a thunk it?)
From Wikipedia: “Ryanair was founded in 1984 as “Danren Enterprises” by Christopher Ryan, Liam Lonergan (owner of Irish travel agent Club Travel), and Irish businessman Tony Ryan, founder of Guinness Peat Aviation. The airline was shortly renamed “Ryanair”. It began operations in 1985 flying a 15-seat Embraer Bandeirante turboprop aircraft between Waterford and Gatwick Airport.” For more info, see this Wiki link.
Being one of the first ultra low cost airlines brought some truly weird ideas with it. Once, one of the owners floated the idea the passengers would be required to buy tokens to use the onboard lavatories. That didn’t happen but the concept of charging fees (sometimes exorbitant fees) for anything other than the initial ticket did happen. Passengers sitting together, a fee. Any change at all to the original ticket, a fee. Checked baggage, a fee. Having the Ryanair agent print the boarding pass, a fee. It’s easy to end up spending more for a Ryanair ticket that you would with a normal airline assuming, of course, that the normal airline flew where you wanted to go.
I had heard all of the horror stories about Ryanair but I hadn’t actually had the misfortune to fly with them. Today, we’re flying with them and I didn’t know about the fee for not having gotten our online boarding passes 2 hours before the flight’s scheduled departure. “That’ll be 120 euro, please. Will that be cash or card?”
After getting clipped for the checked bag and the fast track through security (really legal, paid for line jumping), the boarding pass fee has me a bit stunned. “That’ll be American Express.” (No it won’t.) “I’m sorry, sir, we don’t accept American Express. Only Visa or MasterCard.” (Of course! What was I thinking?)
The good news is that the flight did leave on time. The plane is a Boeing 737-900 which I didn’t think was actually a Max, the frighteningly trouble Boeing aircraft. But whatever it is, it’s seriously stripped down 737, so far that there the seating do not recline and there’s no seat back pocket to stow a tablet or newspaper*.
(*For Millennials and Gen-whatevers, a newspaper is the past day’s news printed on paper (hence the name “newspaper”) that doesn’t use batteries or have to be recharged. It’s a relic of a time gone by. Occasionally, you see people reading newspapers in public which usually indicates that those people can read words that contain vowels, ie. “a”, “e”, “i”, “o”, “u” and sometimes “y” and “w”. Of course, this is now frowned upon as at least bad form and, in some circles (specifically Florida after 2022), a kind of class warfare.)
We arrived in Sardinia early and our bags made it to Cagliari. We’re quite early and after we find the counter for our rental car we find that the counter won’t open for another hour. Back to the terminal for a breakfast snack of the now routine crema cornetto (similar to a croissant) and a cappuccino which I think is the official Italian breakfast.
We were told that the rental agency would open at 9AM an we’re there only to find that a line has already started. As is still the practice in the car rental business, creating the paperwork and digital record for a car rental can take 20 to 30 minutes. I can not understand how Hertz can have the paperwork for the rental waiting for you in the front seat of the rental car only requiring that the gate attendant check the driver’s documents before releasing the car and another brand X company can do the same paperwork in 20 to 30 minutes. Assyrians created clay tablets in less time.
To be fair, the drivers themselves are part of the problem. The company that we rented from, a local, Italian company, required a deposit backed by a credit card, not a debit card, in order to rent a car. All of the booking info was very clear on this, clearly stating this multiple times on the booking forms. Needless to say, when the agent got to that part of the rental process, maybe 10 minutes in to the process, the driver would start to argue the fact because the driver didn’t have a credit card, only a debit card. This would go back and forth until the agent sends the potential renter to a phone number to discuss the policy with someone higher up the company food chain and moves on to the next renter in line, us.
Finally, we get our chance in front of the agent and everything goes smoothly (I have a credit card and I know the policy). Sign on a tablet 6(!) times. Take all the insurance. Note all the previous dings on the car. Get the keys and the contract. Head off into the car return area to find the car.
All the way at the far end of the lot we find the area for our rental company (they are at the bottom end of the rental car pecking order) and even find an attendant who starts to show all the dings and stops. He notices that we have all the insurance which also covers any new dings that might happen while we have the car and tells us that the previous dings don’t matter. Have a nice stay in Sardinia. Much friendlier here in Sardinia than back in Naples. A sign of things to come.
By now it’s 10:30’ish and we head for downtown Cagliari. We can’t check into our hotel room until 3:00PM so we’re headed to the old city to the Archaeological Museum to gets a heads up on the ancient ruins here in Sardinia. We find parking in a free parking lot just outside the walled city and walk the last few blocks to the museum.
Sardinia is literally awash in paleolithic ruins called nuraghes that were first built during the Nuragic age between 1900 and 730 BCE. There are though to have been over 10,000 built of which the remains of over 8,500 have been found. The Archaeological Museum is the place to learn about the nuraghes and other parts of the ancient history of Sardinia. See this link for Wiki info on nuraghes.
It’s after 1:00 when we finally leave the the museum. We starving and start to hunt for restaurant. The bad news is that this particular area near the museum doesn’t have many places to eat but we do find one hidden at the bottom of a flight of stairs. A good lunch with a liter of water and a good glass of local red wine. Back to the car to find our room for the night.
The room for the night is in the Blue Moon boutique hotel and like most of this type of hotel, the “hotel” is usually a floor in an apartment building that has been newly renovated and converted into maybe six individual rental rooms, each with en suite bath, a Nespresso style coffee machine and/or an electric kettle, TV and usually a decent internet connection. The Blue Moon even has onsite parking.
The usual check in procedure is to notify the owner by text or Whatsapp 15 or 30 minutes before you arrive at the property and they meet you there. We call. The owner tells us that the parking is behind the building in a small garage that currently has a car in it. No problem. “My husband is coming by with the key and will move the car.”
The husband arrives in a few minutes. He gives us the keys, moves the car, we move our car in. Up stairs to the room. Settle in and take a well deserved break. This day started very early and we need some time to nap. I head back out to get some water and snacks. Later, we’ll explore for dinner.
This area is a residential area and there aren’t many restaurants. We walk down to the main boulevard looking but other than a few cafes there aren’t any restaurants that are open. WE finally get to a small square and there’s a small Greek takeout restaurant. We look in but there’s really nowhere to sit and it’s getting a bit chilly for sitting outside. But just as we are about to walk away, the owner calls to us and tells us that he has another full service restaurant just across the side street. Works for me. I’m ready for a break from pasta and pizza.
The owner is named Dmitri and is the quintessential Greek restaurant owner. The restaurant is almost empty at the moment so he motions to us to sit anywhere. We sit and he brings us water and menus.
It really is a genuine Greek restaurant. All the usual offerings: suovlaki, saganaki (fried cheese), Greek salad and, my favorite, retsina. I notice that they have spetsofai on the menu and ask for it for dinner. I tease him by telling him that we have been going to the island of Spetses for years now and I must have spetsofai. (Spetsofai is a dish made of fried sausage, onions, peppers and tomatoes and depending on the current whim of the kitchen, it can be very spicy.)
Dmitri isn’t sure if they have it and goes to the kitchen to check. He comes back and says that the cook is happy to make but he also warns me that it may be “very spicy”. He also tells me that spetsofai has nothing to do with Spetses, the island. I laugh and tell him that I know that and that it was teasing him. (I don’t think that he knew, though, until his cook told him.)
We talk all through the meal. The food is quite good and I love the retsina, especially so after being pleasantly surprised to find it here in Cagliari. We finish up and give a warm “efharisto” and “kale nikta” (thank you and good night) to Dmitri and head back to the room.
Tomorrow, nuraghes
Obi-wan