Sardinia, Post 4 - The Nuraghi

There are something like 8,000 Nuraghic villages on Sardinia, and that is only the ones that have been excavated. These photos are just a sample of what you can find on the island if you have a fetish for ruins. Most of the Nuraghi date back at least 3,500 years. And I thought Cloris Leachman was old. I traveled down to the largest excavated village in the town of Su Nuraxi, where along with the village there is also a museum dedicated to that specific site and the man who pioneered the dig. It just seemed amazing to me that with all the unexcavated areas of the island, that under any hill that I saw there could have been village dating back to... well, a really long time ago.

Sardinia, Post 3 - Grotta di Nettuno, Alghero, Sassari and Tharros.

From San Pasquale, I headed to the western shore of the island, stopping at Capo Caccia and Grotta di Nettuno. 

From There, I headed a bit south to the Charming seaside town/tourist mecca of Alghero. It was here, I found my first beloved granita of the trip. The first time I had one was with my Mother, Sister and Aunt on the Island of Panarea (where the maternal side of my family hails from) and I have had a love affair with it ever since. I usually always choose the coffee granita. This one in Alghero was perfect. I should have asked for two.

Then it was on to Sassari, Sardinia's second largest city. Sassari seemed the most authentic urban place on the Island. It has a long history of art and cultural and has been ruled over by everyone under the sun, but now it is a city that feels as though it isn't really trying to please anyone, it is just being what it is. Lovely at times, a bit worn at others.

From there it was down to Tharros, the ancient Phoenician city at the tip of an isthmus to the west of Oristano.

The drive back up to Alghero from here along the coast line, provided some of the most beautiful views of the trip.

Sardinia, Post 2 - Capo Testa.

Capo Testa is a rocky promontory (where, alledgedly, ancient Romans quarried granite) that offers amazing coves for swimming, beautiful rocks and boulders for traversing and wonderful scenery for viewing. Corsica looms in the distance as sailboats and yatchs make thier way throught the 11 mile stretch between France and Italy. Undoubtedly, it would have been lovely to have been sipping a Prosecco on the deck of one of those yachts, but we all can't be Donatella Versace can we? The rest of us have to contend with climbing the rocks like monkeys. Lucky little monkeys, at that.

Sardinia, Post 1.

So I wasn't sure quite how to approach this, as I took almost 800 photos of my trip to Sardinia. I decided that the easiest way for me to post some pics was to first give you a general photo overview from the places on the island that I traveled to and then with each subsequent post, give more detail on those individual places/regions that I saw. Also to help, I thought I would give you a google map to give you an idea of the geography that was covered, Its at the very bottom of this post. I will link in more info on each place as I post on them to give a more in depth idea on the sights.

The small village of San Pasquale where I stayed.

One of the many inlets of Capo Testa

Castelsardo

Capo Caccia and the opening to Neptune's Grotto

Sassari

The Naval Museum on Isola Maddalena

Inside the Nuraghi village in Su Nuraxi

Oristano

Do I really need to tell you what these are?

A view from Isola Caprera

View Sardinia in a larger map

The Stockholm Archipelago

Before I head off to the Italian island of Sardinia, I thought it would be appropriate to share with you the  images of some of the Swedish islands I visited on my last trip there. The Stockholm Archipelago has something like 24,000 islands that make it up, which seemed impossible to me until I was on a  ferry boat sailing through them. Once you are among them they become inumerable. It seems that some Swedes take to summering on these islands in small little cottages that seem more fitting in Tolkien's Shire then they do in the waters off the Baltic Sea. I set out on a ferry boat from Stavnas and my first stop was the island of Sandhamn. After a lovely walk across the island, it was on to Grinda, Vaxholm and then back to Stockholm. I made a map of my journey here.