Adventures of the Binghams: Sardinia Part Three

Waking up to sun flooding through the windows was rather misleading. I suppose the high pitch whistle coming from the balcony should have tipped us off but we still acted mad as hornets when we noticed the pool had waves. Pools aren’t supposed to have waves. Stupid wind.

Not wanting to spend the day pouting in our hotel room, we opted to hop in the car and just get lost. I remembered reading there were some ancient ruins outside of the nearby town. I typed “Cabu Abbas” into Karen and hit “GO!” hoping for the best. Before we knew it, we were driving through some industrial area in Olbia. We figured “this can’t be right” but Karen didn’t change her route even after I changed the address multiple times. She seemed to know where she was taking us. (Is it weird that we follow our GPS system so blindly?)

Whew! A good sign...no pun intended.

When we finally saw a sign for Cabu Abbas, we gave Karen a little pat and continued on. Unfortunately, part of the road was out and we were going to have to hike this section of the mountain/large hill, as well. Brad was adamant that he could make it in the Nissan Micra…he would have been wrong.

This little trek was right up our alley as Brad and I don’t do relaxing vacations very well. Don’t get me wrong, we absolutely LOVE beach/pool time but if that’s all there is….we get bored. I should remember this when packing. Instead, I opted to bring sandals, flip flops, and a pair of little Sketchers which are basically the equivalent to ballet flats with a strap. Not exactly hiking gear but I managed. Only rolled my ankle a dozen times and tripped just as many.

But I’d say it was worth it.

History lesson time: The Cabu Abbus ruins date back to 1600 – 1300 B.C. Stop. Think about that for a minute. 1600 B.C. It’s a tad old. The main part of the Cabu Abbus complex is a big stone wall about 240 yards long and 16 feet tall and wide. I hope for the sake of those who lived here in 1600 B.C. that it wasn’t always that windy. Whew! I about took a nose dive off that mountain on more than one occasion.

When we were back on level ground we decided to check out several other towns around Costa Smeralda. Our first stop was Porto Rotondo. We walked up and down the street markets where Brad found THIS hat. Be jealous.

After a gorgeous drive through Golfo Aranci (where we almost stayed) we made our way back to the hotel. We had picked up some delicious gorgonzola, fresh bread, and prosciutto (and wine, of course) the day before so we enjoyed a lovely picnic….in the hotel room.

The wind finally subsided and we spent the next two days poolside. We did a lot of reading and a lot of people watching. By day two we had already come up with nicknames for the majority of the people there. For example, Curly Sue was this PRECIOUS 3 year old German girl with the curliest hair I’ve ever seen. She refused to wear shoes ever and was constantly laughing or making some else (usually me) laugh. If Stella were a real person, this is who she'd be. There was also Jude Law. He was another little German boy who I kid you not, looked identical to Jude Law….well, when Jude Law was 10. We also had The Leathery Couple. They were Italian and were the first people at the pool (9:00 am) and the last to leave (7:00 pm) EVERY DAY! Their skin looked like…you guessed it – leather. Then there was the Old British Couple. They were old. And British. Lastly, we had Negative Butt. She was this really pretty girl, maybe 18, super stylish, great figure…but was missing something. I’ll let you figure it out. It was just odd. Maybe she should eat a croissant with Nutella on it.

The dinners seemed to get better throughout the week….or maybe we just lowered our expectations….or maybe that glass of wine prior to dinner put us in a good mood going into it. Almost every night before dinner, we attempted to take a picture on our balcony.