I carry an abnormal fear of authority. I get nervous walking into a liquor store despite being well over the age of 21. I’ll be driving the speed limit, but the minute I see those lights on top of the car behind me, I panic. Despite all reasoning, I assume I was speeding and I’m somehow not allowed to buy beer and I’ll wind up in jail. I felt this abnormal fear of authority meeting me as we prepared to board a car ferry from the Italian island of Sardinia to the Maddalena Archipelago. Scattered in between the islands of Sardinia and Corsica, just off the Costa Smeralda, La Maddalena Continue Reading
Nora, Sardinia Wishes You Were Here
The clouds suggest an invasion of the spring storm variety, but I know this spot isn’t spooked. The ancient city of Nora, set up on the southern coast of Sardinia, has seen conquerors come and go, thunderheads included. With a sprinkle of rain, I roam the supposed first town on the Italian island. Founded by the Phoenicians in the 9th century B.C., Nora would change hands between the Carthaginians and the Romans. Most of what I observe are vestiges of Roman rule, proof that no island was isolated enough for the Romans to reach. And like any respectable Roman site, I come upon an Continue Reading
Sardinia, Italy Wishes You Were Here
On every traveler’s lifeline, there are points where you believe you have found a place that is all yours. You don’t know this will be the result when you board that plane, train or bus. That is to be expected, the beginnings for surprise. Sardinia is my place, or at least, it was. A Catch 22 lies with calling a place your own for there is always time, season and position working against you. A second visit to Sardinia I suspect wouldn’t have the same effect as the first. The first time I fell for Sardinia probably came while watching the wind blow through cliff-hanging shrubs. The sea was Continue Reading
Sitting On Italian Church Steps
When the chaos of the outside world grows, expands, and engulfs everything in my travel path, I head not to a museum, hotel, or restaurant for respite but rather to a church. Throughout Italy, a Catholic church seems to be the requirement in every town, along the same lines of having a supermarket or a post office. Those without are normally towns along the side of the road merely consisting of a café, bank, and tabacchi, the religious rejects if you will. The outside world whizzes on by. Cars honk loudly and vespas interject throughout most side conversations. When I need a break from that Continue Reading
Costa Verde, Sardinia Wishes You Were Here
It is no secret that I love Sardinia. The island just below Corsica and to Italy’s west yields those corny, take-your-breath-away moments. While I have yet to get up north and see what northern Sardinia is all about, I did spend some time exploring southern Sardinia’s scenery, filled with secluded beaches and peachy-colored, rocky mountains. What did I conclude of these visions? Well, I know why Sardinians live so long. This is what they wake up to every morning. Continue Reading
My 3 Best Kept Travel Secrets
The travel chain letter has reached my virtual hands. In case you do not know about this project, Tripbase asked travel writers to reveal their three best-kept travel secrets. I was so graciously passed the torch by Top Backpacking Destinations to share with readers my 3 travel secrets. It seems like a great oxymoron to reveal those secrets in a public posting. The funny thing about almost every place around the world is that someone has looked upon it at some point. We are never the only ones, well maybe in parts of Antarctica or in South American jungles, but that is what is so appealing Continue Reading
Where are you going? An evening stroll through Cagliari’s Castello Quarter
Tonight, my feet have brought me to the streets of Cagliari on Sardinia’s southern coast. Cagliari, a port city founded by the Phoenicians in the 7th century B.C., remains the island’s capital, filled with a mixture of modern and ancient architectures. The city lies in the middle of the Golfo degli Angeli, in other words, the Gulf of the Angels. The heavenly aspect to Cagliari at first glance may seem hard to find with run-down buildings and moderately sketchy accommodations, but the angelic quality to Cagliari seems to be perched a flight of stairs above the town in the Castello Continue Reading