The Johnslingtons

Into every island vacation some rain must fall. And during our Sardinia stay, it fell on day three, after a couple of days of this kind of idyllic gorgeousness:

Wednesday dawned gray and windy, with a forecast of thunderstorms on and off all day. Having already gotten plenty of good, jet lag-curing beach time, we decided to see what else the island had to offer. Our first attempt was near Sorgento Su Gologone, which promised rambling walks and cool caves to explore that we figured would be OK even in a little rain. Unfortunately, when we arrived, there was a LOT of rain. Cate bravely drove rental car Inky up the road we thought was our best bet for any kind of scenic exploration, but things didn’t look promising. When we passed a car coming the other direction, we asked whether it was worth going any farther. The driver answered in Italian and Cate translated for the rest of us: “He says it’s beautiful, but it’s closed.” So that was that, then!

Our next stop was far more successful. Serra Orrios is a Nuralgic village featuring lots of crumbling Bronze Age structures that were fun to learn about and poke around in, especially as the weather mostly held during our visit.

After the triumph of one touristy attraction, we were ready for more—the next thing on the itinerary was a charming family winery called Cantina Mastros de ‘Inu, where we popped in for a tasting and a lovely chat with the woman behind the bar (largely facilitated by Google Translate).

After that, we made our way to S’Abba Frisca, which we thought was going to be a) a delightfully cheesy live museum with actors in period clothing, and b) free with our ticket receipt from Serra Orrios. We were wrong on both fronts. But! It was still awesome, even without actors, even at full price. (For the record, there was a museum that was free with our receipt; we just weren’t at it.) We took the last tour of the day of the living farm museum, led by the great-great-grandson of the original farmer. We saw wells and wine presses, spinning wheels and looms, grain sorters and giant bellows, antique weapons and jewelry. We saw fruit trees and waterfalls and tons and tons of adorable farm animals. Again, the weather mostly held and again, we had a blast.

After a somewhat tense drive through (city streets in Sardinia are NARROW, people) and brief walk around the town of Dorgali, we made our way up a mountain to a restaurant called Rifugio Gorropu that Cate found to answer Dan’s desire to eat at an agritourismo (she also pre-ordered their specialty suckling pig for us, because she does not mess around). The views were spectacular and food was delish.

With awesome people to hang with, great food to eat and cool sights to see, all soundtracked by a sweet rainy-day playlist (courtesy of yours truly), our wet Sardinia day ended up giving us plenty of bright memories.