Sardegna - sun, sea, sand and very little sleep

 

Cagliari

After vowing to get to bed early, Emma and I were still awake at 2am, the night before our 8am flight to Cagliari. Not because we were out being wild like the party animals that we are, but because we were too excited to sleep!

After calming down a little bit we had a nice morning flight and met Jess at the airport in Sardinia; so nice to see her and hear about her visit to Cuneo.

It was also lovely to be welcomed by warm temperatures, bright sunshine, palm trees and the sea! Although it’s still in Italy it’s completely different to Parma, so it definitely felt like we were on an actual holiday. We wandered down to the port and had some lunch whilst we waited for Lauren to finish school, then commenced our grand tour of Cagliari.

Apart from the sea, the other feature that Cagliari has that Parma doesn’t is HILLS. And with hills come amazing views. Hundreds of cute little buildings, murals left on walls from Mussolini’s time…and lots of stories from Lauren about the bandits – the Mafia of Sardinia, leading to many discussions about Italy’s political history.

Of course being girls, and with loan day having been recently for Emma and Jess, we managed to fit in a bit of a look round the shops, and then headed to a really cute restaurant for the biggest pizza I have ever eaten in my life, followed by a compulsory limoncello for all before we returned to the hostel for a much needed rest!

The next day we got up early enough for the hostel breakfast and then headed out to find the bus to the beach…as soon as we got there the shoes and socks were off and paddling was a must, even though the Mediterranean was still pretty chilly! Beer on the beach was lunchtime order of the day, and we were treated to a gorgeous chicken and mozzarella salad and homemade bianchini, little white meringue type things, by Lauren’s ‘mum’ at her house. We washed the sand off our feet and got ready to go out, trying to mentally prepare ourselves for the all-nighter ahead of us…luckily a few cocktails were there to help us along the way! After throwing some shapes on the dancefloor and one of us receiving a rose from a mystery german navy sailor, we embarked on an epic trek around the city to find some food…and once again, luck was on our side as we found a 24 hour café and got ourselves a coffee and a sandwich before the 5.20am bus to the airport for the ridiculously early flight back!

Our remarkably perky mood at the airport and immense satisfaction at having had such a brilliant couple of days soon turned into sheer exhaustion and we slept all the way back to sunny Parma, got home at 9am, pulled down the shutters and pulled on our pyjamas to begin our night’s sleep!