Travelfood

Sardinia used to be a popular holiday destination in the 70s and in the 80s, but since then at least Scandinavian travelers have forgotten it. Most of the tourism infrastructure seems a bit worn out by now, but it is still functioning, and at least in our destination, Olbia in northern Sardinia, a lot of German, English and Italian is spoken on the tourist roads. The locals are very helpful and they seem proud to receive travelers to their island. I myself thought that they are isolated and do not know many other languages than Italian, but I seemed to be completely wrong.

We chose Olbia partly because it is situated in the north, from where it is easy to do a day trip to the neighboring island Corsica with its beautiful citadel town Bonifacio. From Santa Teresa di Gallura it takes less than an hour by ferry to Corsica and at least two lines have several daily departures during the summer months. The bus trip from Olbia offers beautiful mountain scenery and emerald colored coastline, which is nice because in Olbia there are no beaches within walking distance.

One reason to choose Sardinia is the gastronomy of the island, which is a less famous part of the well-known Italian cuisine. According to my pre-investigation Sardinian food and meat tastes of mountain herbs, and the fish offering is vast. At least in Olbia the menus were packed with seafood and fish dishes. Sardinian cheese can be served as antipasti as roasted with pears and berries or as a dessert called seadas, which is deep-fried cheese and honey. Another special dish is culurgiones, a potato gnocchi in creamy cheese sauce. If you choose seafood pasta, you should make sure you get fregola, a small pearl-like pasta pre-cooked with tomato and pecorino cheese. When you are waiting for your delicacies, you usually receive a basket with Pane Carasauta, which is a paper-thin bread.

Finally, a small warning about arriving to Olbia. If you wish to use local transportation from the airport to the city center, you need to choose the correct ticket vending machine. The bus door prompts you to having bought your ticket in advance, but we managed to buy the ticket from the driver. Another time we bought the ticket from a machine in advance, but that turned out to be the machine for regional buses (Arst). That ticket was not good enough for the local bus line (Aspo), which in practice handles the bus transportation to the city center. I still do not know where the Aspo ticket machine was situated.

Corsica, Europe, food, France, Italy, Sardinia, travel, travel experiences