All I Want for Christmas is My Own Island
Written: Dec 13 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Fun, cheap, easy to get to/around, great beaches, Not touristy
Cons: not many English speakers around so brush up on your Italian
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| foofygrrl's Full Review: Sardinia |
Aaaah Sardinia. As American students studying in London, my friend Jeff and I stared outside at yet another rainy day and wondered, is this all there is? But a quick trip to ryanair.com to check out travelling info within Europe and we quickly realized that for 29 pounds we could fly round trip to Alghero...
Alghero? Where is that? A quick search on google.com and we were oohing and aahing at pictures of Sardinia. A quick search on weather.com and we were packing shorts and buying sunglasses. We booked the trip and booked it to London Stanstead airport on November 10th. Who cared that tourist season was over months ago? We were off to Sardinia!!!
2 hours later we stepped off the plane into the warm Alghero air and jumped up and down at the sight of palm trees. After being stabbed by the British exchange rate for months we rejoiced at the rate of 2,200 lire = 1 dollar. It was warm, it was pretty, and my god it was CHEAP.
The first night we stayed at the Hotel Normandie. It was cheap at 28,000 lire, but kind of sparse with a rating of one star. Jeff and I fondly called it, "the kind of hotel people check into before they kill themselves." But heck we were on a student budget and were off to bigger and better places the next day anyway.
Some of the places we saw:
Alghero-a beautfiul old town with Spanish influence.
Sassari - more modern town in the center of Sardinia. Lots of places to go shopping. Benetton was SO cheap.
Olbia - we loved Olbia. Especially the Fontana del Gelato.
La Costa Smeralda - home of the beautiful beaches in Sardinia, we spent all day lounging around and getting tan
Grotto di Nettuno - AMAZING cave with awesome limestone formations.
Porto Torres-stay well clear of Porto Torres. We drove through it and it was more than enough of the industrial zone than we needed to see.
Cabo Caccia-amazing view of the Mediterranean!! Park the car and wait for the sunset, the pictures we took came out fabulous...
Stintino-very cute town on the east coast, stop in for a prosciutto crudo and formaggio panini...
We stayed at the hotel Minerva in Olbia, which was infinitely better than the Hotel Normandie and about 60,000 lire for two nights. We ate two foods and two foods only. Gelatto (to die for!! and so cheap. Try straciatella) and pizza. Pizza is fantastic there but I ate so much of it that I can't look at it for a month. But a whole pizza is about 4,000 lire and it's amazing. The specialty is tonna e cipolle (tuna and onion) which is tasty, if you order peperoni, expect slices of pepper, not pieces of meat (learned that lesson the hard way).
Two years of Italian in high school definitely paid off, the only English-speaker we found was the man at Avis who rented us a car. Aaahh the Fiat Punto. Basically the Italian equivalant of a Yugo. Or a clown car. Not exactly made for handling those bumpy Sardinian roads, but hey we survived and the thing was damn fuel efficient.
So tan, relaxed, stuffed and with money left over, we boarded the plane and waved goodbye to Sardinia. So if you're looking for somewhere totally random and spontaneous to go, hop on a plane and check out Sardinia. It's the equivalant of the Caribbean in Europe and if you go during the off season you'll feel like it's your own private island. It's almost like you're Napoleon on St Helena without that whole exile thing. Fabulous.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
foofygrrl
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Member: Bean McFoofster
Location: Long Island, NY
Reviews written: 7
Trusted by: 1 member
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