The Three Island Tour – Keep Walking

La Mimosa.

I enjoy pulling the blog together, it gives me a chance to review the past week. Often we marvel that the times I recount took place so recently.

Last evening as I finished the post I was knackered. More tired than I can remember. We’d done a hard stank in hot sunshine and we needed dinner.

Our home for the night caters for up to 200 guests during the summer. The host wasn’t happy to cater for just two. The love wasn’t there. Nonetheless the food was good. No love, just quantity.

On the table for starters: grilled aubergine, grilled courgette, sun dried tomatoes, pickled artichoke stalk, pickled artichoke, pickled aubergine, olives. All this from the garden. We haven’t finished yet. Three cured meats, three cheeses, two breads. Olive oil, from the garden. Wine, from the garden. Starters!

Next came pasta malloreddus – small thick pasta shells, with a tomato and sausage sauce. Served on a platter that would feed several more people than we’d seen all day.

There’s more to come. We were defeated by a cork server of suckling pig. Even if we were unfed it’s unlikely that we could tuck into the over-facing quantity of meat laid before us.

Oh. And then a huge fruit platter and petit fours to accompany the grappa.

Breakfast resembled the starter, with added cake.

On walking.

Solvitur ambulando. It is solved by walking.

Much of our life is (solved by walking). 

A sulk, by one, the other, or both. Walk until you talk. Talk until you laugh.

A worry. Walk it and think it through until it overwhelms you (unlikely), or you realise you’re overthinking the issue and you move from worry to strategy.

An overactive mind (mine). Walk it until physical fatigue erodes mental over-productivity to the degree you long for rest.

The pattern of a long walk.

Already we’ve identified a pattern. 

The first quarter of whatever distance is chatter filled. Fuelled on strong Italian coffee and still digesting our huge dinner we banter on subjects as varied as The Donald (generally banned), parents, and planting at Goldings.

By the mid-point of a walk we’re feeling the need for rest and sustenance. Whichever of us calls the moment leaves the other grateful.

Standing again after just twenty minutes brings groans that we’d never thought we’d utter for a decade at least. But while the first step is hard, the next is easier.

On a long walk, in unknown territory, there’s a need for awareness. Checking the map. Checking the route. But when you’re confident of the direction, you’re fed, and you’re through the chatter, a meditative state sets in. 

I’ve been aware of this deep calm previously, but today it hit me when a rustle pulled me from the depths of my reverie. I’d sunken into a state where my mind was no longer racing, my world was one foot in front of the other. I hope to get there again. 

The rustle triggered self-preservation. We both turned to watch the snake slither from the path.

Flamingos*.

I keep forgetting to mention the flamingos. So here’s their name check. 

The first evening on the coast I promised flamingos without a clue whether their season is now. And on the lake five graced us with their pink one legged display. 

In the wings a heron muttered “Prima donnas!” 

We were to see plenty more. Always too distant for phone photos.

Agriturismo Sa Roia Traversa.

Yesterday at La Mimosa I had to drag our host to the site to let us in. I had to nudge him through the duties we were paying him for.

Today, hot, dusty and tired, I reached for the door handle at Roia Traversa only to have the door open as if by magic, at the hand of Rita, the wonderful owner, host, cook, cleaner and entertainer at this fabulous farm stay.

We dined with Georgio and Gina. Georgio a retired Genova ad man and Gina a teacher, both in their late 70s. Both fit, healthy and fun. They’ve been staying here twice a year for the last 16 years.

Google helped us through conversation over an amazing dinner that we would never have ordered had the items been presented on a menu. 

Fregola with shell-fish. This cous cous like pasta has great bite and absorbs its sauce. Mussels, clams, prawns, squid, with a dusting of fiery paprika. 

Grey mullet from the salt lakes. Fillets baked in the farm’s olive oil with peppers and garlic. Weeds (greens), peperonata, cheese, olives, artichokes, pecorino. Sweet. Sour. Stunning.

Almond cakes. Myrtle. Red wine. Hold the coffee please – I need sleep.

Blisters.

Minty refuses to buy expensive gear. Trainers from Decathlon. They do everything. Work. Drive. Walk.

Kelvin buys fancy boots. Fancy running shoes.

Kelvin gets blisters.

This one’s small, but deep, and painful as hell.

For day 5 I switch to trainers and double socks. It keeps the pain at bay.

After 6 days of good weather, on day 7 we wake to rain.

We’re offered a lift by our lovely hosts, but the earlier we get to our final destination the longer we’ll have to wait until we can get into our room. Plus we couldn’t walk for six days then give up because of a little of what characterises most walks at home.

The rain wasn’t the issue. It was what the rain caused. The limestone soil turns to clay when wet and your shoes soon weigh double from the thick rime of gloop that stops you lifting your foot, or getting purchase when you put it down.

For the first time I’m grateful for my walking poles. I slip with every foot fall.

We were wrong to shrug at the mere 14km we were to walk on day 7. It was bloody hard.

Villa Canu.

It was bloody hard, but the rain incentivised our pace and we cracked along getting to Cabras at 12.00. Check in wasn’t until 15.15.

I accept that at 60 I’m not going to pass for cute, but my pleading eyes must have told a story as the hotel receptionist quickly changed from “You can’t check-in yet.” To “You can have room 12.”

The smart room wasn’t smart once we’d draped our wet clothes off every hook and hanger, but we didn’t care. We’d made the distance, and after a quick shower sleep called loud.

Companion planting.

Nearly everything I’ve since read online suggests that gladioli shouldn’t be planted with peas.

Well, the Sardinians clearly didn’t read that memo. We passed many fields of peas (and enjoyed a fair few straight off the vines) where the fields were edged with short, unshowy, purple gladioli.

Fresh peas. Pod and all. Trail snack.

Echo.

This beautiful area of tiling surrounds the inset terrace of a beach house that I guess was built in the 70s. Other smaller tiles have been painted over in the red that you see at the very end of this wall. While the tiles delighted me, it was the sound that drew me to them. Whether by design, or happy coincidence, the west facing inset created an amplifying echo of the sea 50m in front of it. I could sit there listening all day in the shade.

Walk’s end.

Six hotels, eight nights of comfort, morning showers, seven long walks, evening showers, great food.

After the freedom of the van the structure was good. Early breakfast. Careful sock selection. Route overview. Walk long, walk hard.

Arriving too early at destinations wasn’t always so good – especially as the Italians don’t eat until 8pm or later. By then we’re past hungry and wanting to sleep.

Setting off from Cabras the air of disappointment rose like the sour stench of my wet-too-often trainers, but it wasn’t to last.

Gian-Luca saw to that.

Chickens and beans.

80kms down the road from our last hotel we pulled onto a farm just outside San Sperate where Gian-Luca has people staying in his house, vans staying in his olive groves, various folk there to work, various folk there to loaf. 

Today everyone is picking broad beans.

In the house there’s a display of his olive oils and the products of his 85 year old mother. She makes jams, she preserves peppers, artichokes, tomatoes, she juices the fruits of the farm.

Chickens roam free and are likely to hop into your van for a look around. 

Gian-Luca reaches under one, then another, then produces warm eggs for Amanda before taking her to see a dozen new chicks.

Rainfall has been low and we’re asked to pour any waste water around the trees, to pee on the trees, and to waste nothing.

Reading the notes of thanks on the wall, this place is an oasis for the young travellers lucky enough to happen across it for a night, who then stay for a season. Work. Find themselves.

San Sperate.

A sculptor, Pinuccio Sciola, lived his life in San Sperate, shaping rock, playing his creations as instruments. His work is scattered across the village, but his master stroke was to convince the powers to create a work of art from the village itself. There are now more than 300 murals depicting simple life on the walls of the town, with modern sculptural works added frequently by those inspired by his example.

You see it all.

Life in a van is not for the shy or retiring. You’ll know more about your partner in six months of this life than you might ever learn sharing your house.

You also see more of others than you might expect or hope for.

We were reminded of an example this morning as a particular van pulled in that we’d seen up the coast.

We’d risen early last Tuesday to drive to Cabras to start our walk.

Passing the van service area (where big vans stop to empty their waste water tanks over a huge grating in the road, and all empty their toilet cassettes into the appropriate receptacle. It’s not the most fragrant of places) we saw our neighbour naked but for her shower foam, showering at the hose provided to flush those tanks. Neither of us said a word and carried on to shower in the warm shower cubicles as we thought we should.

Change is happening.

For weeks we have seen very few people. The roads have been empty. The towns have been empty. Most things have been shut. Tumble weed blows through.

But it’s changing.

Easter is on the horizon and there’s tidying up, cleaning up and opening up happening all over.

There are more cars on the road. 

In our huge campsite on the coast near Pula there are enough vans to make a more modest place seem busy. 

Caravans are being readied for their summer occupation.

While us Northern Europeans are in tee shirts and shorts the Italians wrap up in puffer jackets, hats and scarves.

Campeggio Cala d’Ostia.

Tokens to shower. 3 minutes. I could (and often do) spend far too long in the shower. The token encourages pace. It works.

Cold water to do the dishes. I’m never happy about that.

No loo roll.

No loo roll has become a thing. It started in France. Campsites being tight. When they charge 28 Euros a night. It’s a shame.

Rain has been followed by rain, but today the sun is back and the inches of mud outside the van will soon dry.

On Sunday we’ll dock on Sicily. Easter Sunday, in the most Catholic part of Catholic Italy. It should be interesting!

*On being bird.

Young birds have it hard. Some harder than others. Two parental training manuals from this week include:

Flamingos: “Now then son, you have to pink up. Get really pink. And your secret will be the deep orange and black flash you’ll hide under your wing. You’ll stand around. Lots. You’ll stand on one leg.”

Swifts: “Little one. When you drop like a stone from this nest you mustn’t hit the ground. Watch. Learn. But there’s no practise. You’ll fly, fly for days, fly for weeks. You’ll be sun baked, rained on, hailed on, shot at, but you’ll be the fastest thing on a wing, you’ll get by. Then one day, in more weeks than you can count, you’ll fly back here and you’ll build a nest like this. When it’s built, only then can you land and rest a while.

Note: while the falcon dives faster, the swift is the fastest bird in level flight reaching up to 110kmh. It may fly 10,000 kms in a year.