|
January 31 Tuesday Bicycle touring Italy from a row of trees past Cagliari Sardinia to a seaside pullout past Chia Sardegna Shopping in Sardinia or Sardegna, Italy, they put everything, from bread to fruit, into thick brown paper bags. The bread isn't so much per loaf or per bun, rather it is so much per kilogram. You tell them how many of which ones you want at the bread counter and then they put them into a bag for you, weigh it, then write the amount of lira on the bag, which you then take to a cashier to pay for. Sometimes, somewhat amusingly, this turns out to be the same person. They leave the bread station and come over to the till. Fruit and vegetables are done the same way. If they choose a bread or fruit you don't like, you can say no, and point to another. (We found in France that some bread shops would pawn off their burnt bread on the unsuspecting tourists.) Here, in Sardinia, they are more likely to hold the bread up to show you, for your approval first. The fancier-shaped bread costs more. Some bread is dry and plain tasting, others are wholesome, chewy, and delicious by itself. We usually put jam on our bread to get more taste and calories. Cherry jam is particularly good. Or we make the bread or buns into sandwiches from sliced ham and light soft cheese picked out from another counter. We point to what we want and then indicate how many slices we would like by holding up our fingers while pronouncing a facsimile of the number in Italian. Most people are very patient and helpful. They wrap our 4 to 10 slices in a wax paper, folding it professionally and writing the price on the outside. We repeat this process every day, sometimes twice or more, if a store doesn't have what we want and we have to go to another store. No one seems to mind the small quantities we ask for. A lot of the locals buy like us everyday, too. Freezers and fridges are not used like back home. People don't preserve fruit and vegetables here because they can grow fresh produce year round, putting in different crops for summer or winter. We pass many gardens growing an assortment of vegetables and, of course, oranges and lemon trees in yards. We passed a yard where the oranges were falling onto the road and getting run over by cars, so I didn't think they would mind if I helped myself to them. I picked up twenty. They turned out to be sweet and juicy with hardly any seeds. Back home we would be making frozen orange juice or something with them, but here they have so many, why bother? We rode our fully loaded touring bicycles into Nora, an archeological Roman dig, on the Gulf of Cagliari. We walked around the large site of ruins. Rocks and bricks, a few columns and mosaic tiles of white and black stones. Nora used to have a double port, which the Romans were well known for settling at, on each side of the promontory. The town was abandoned after an earthquake. A large part of Nora's townsite lies under the sea. It was 11:30 AM. A white fine-sand beach, looking out over the azure water of the Gulf is where we spread our plastic orange ground sheet (previously my rain poncho in the US), behind a rock to block the breeze. It was 20º C, and hot in the direct sun. A wonderful summer day by Canadian standards. Earlier, a shopkeeper in Sarroch said this day was no good because it was too cold! They are still walking around with down jackets, toques and scarves! Sharon says they would die from Edmonton's cold winter temperatures. But we would probably melt here in the summer from the intense heat. I see why they close between 1 and 4 PM in the summer and no one goes out. Like Tony said, "Even tourists shouldn't be out then." From Sarroch we are bicycle touring off the main route SS105, so there are less trucks and buses buzzing by our elbows. At Chia, the road follows along the south coast. Great views of the sea come into view on the scenic road. Definitely bicycle touring at its finest! We cycle into Bithia where there is a ruin lighthouse structure. Looks like a fine place to bicycle camp. We climb to the top of the hill and find two men chipping away at the rock building, restoring it. It truly is a great view, but there are too many people around to risk camping. There is even a "No camping" sign posted. We get back on our fully loaded touring bicycles and cycle farther down the coast. As no more towns are indicated on our map for quite a ways, we should be able to find something secluded. I struggle to cycle up a steep incline with my fifteen pounds of water and ten pounds of oranges bungeed onto my bike's back rack. At the top I am rewarded with a spectacular view. We cycle camp a couple of kilometres farther, by a pullout, overlooking the sea and islands. A castle-like fortress is lit from behind by the rapidly sinking sun. Not much traffic on the road as we lie on a Flintstone Lazyboy and eat as many oranges as possible. I quit when my tongue started to pinch. Besides, I have boulder butt. A myriad of stars dot the black night. |
