We recover the car and head out for our first search for ruins in Sardinia. That shouldn’t be hard and there are literally thousands of ruins here from about 8,000 BCE forward.
Just
who and/or what is Sardinia? Here’s a quote from the Wiki article
about the island, “Sardinia is the second-largest island in the
Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, and one of the 20 regions of Italy.
It is located west of the Italian Peninsula, north of Tunisia and
immediately south of the French island of Corsica.
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?)
Breakfast in the hotel dining room and then check out. Pack the car and we’re off for a longish drive to Napoli. Back through the winding streets and onto the autostrada. We’re headed for Bomarzo to see the Sacro Bosco (“Sacred Grove”), also called Park of the Monsters.
Bormarzo
is about 150 kilometers southeast of Siena. We go about half way on
the autostrada and half on 2 lane country roads. We’re out of the
dramatic mountains now but the scenery is all open, rolling hill
farmland with almost no traffic.
After a good night’s sleep, we off to downtown Siena. First we stop at the dining room for the breakfast buffet and then to the from desk to inquire about bus service to the old city.
The
woman at the desk takes our map and starts telling us and drawing the
bus stops, all at light speed. The only part we get from the
discussion (the map drawing was useless) is “Leave the hotel, go to
the end of the road and turn right (or was it left?) and the bus stop
is right there.”
We pack up and leave the farmhouse B&B just as the owner arrives to clean up after us. We thank her and head off to San Gimignano to see the medieval city in the daylight.
It’s
about 9:00 AM and it’s a beautiful postcard day, almost cloudless.
There’s plenty of parking at the parking lot closest to the front
gate through the city wall of the old city. Park the car and head
into the city.
Today were off to a small medieval town San Gimignano by way of Pisa. We’re up and ready to go but we have to wait until 8:30 AM for the rental office to open so that we can pay for the room and return the room key.
We
walk over to the rental office and find that it doesn’t open til
9:30. fortunately, Barbara knocks on the door and a man who appears
to be the manager comes to the door to tell us that the office
doesn’t open until 9:30. We try to cajole him into opening and
checking us out. He relents, unhappily, and processes the credit
card. By the time he’s done with the check out he’s friendly and
gives us a nice “Ciao!” on the way out the door.
We decided last night that we would use the train to visit the towns in the Cinque Terre, The train gave us much better options for the day.
The
issue with using the boat is that the boat left at 9:00 AM and
stopped at each of the towns and then followed a schedule for
departure and travel to the next town. If you wanted to cut the trip
short there was no way to come back except buying a ticket for the
train and abandoning the boat. I just gave more options to use the
train.
The
good news is that the train station was less than a kilometer from
the apartment. We walk back to the main drag, take right turn and
walk a few hundred meters to the turn off for the train station. Up
the road to the station and follow a woman into the station. She
turns around and asks if we need to get tickets. Next door.
We leave the yurt about 8:30 and knock on the main house door to say good bye to our host. She doesn’t answer and just are we walking away the door opens and she greets us a bit disheveled. Her daughter is ill and home in bed so everyone has slept in.
We says our thanks and good byes and head down the trail to the car for the last time. It’s another beautiful day and the car is sitting there on the side of the steep, narrow road waiting for the drive to Levantro.
A few times during the night the dog would come to the front door of the yurt and stand up to try to open the door by pushing down on the door handle. We finally had to lock the door so that she wouldn’t actually open the door and come in to jump on the bed and join us for the night. With the door locked, she would eventually lose interest and head back to her pups.
Later,
we hear a scraping sound along the back wall of the yurt, which tuns
out to be the donkeys grazing about finding some succulent new growth
of grass/weeds to munch on. It’s a good thing that we knew about
them or life would been a bit disconcerting. I was surprised that
they didn’t try to get in the yurt, too.
Leave the toll station and drive a few feet to the small roundabout with thee roads entering where only one should. Somehow this works with everyone showing some politeness and courtesy. Start heading for the toll station again but veer off to the right to miss the entry to the autostrada and head up a very windy, steep and narrow road.
Five switchbacks later and two near head-on collisions and we see the owner of the yurt standing in the road waving us to the left side of the narrow road to park. She and her young daughter are waiting for us to check in so that they can leave for a birthday dinner. It’s the owner’s birthday.
