Sardinia, New Year 2001/2002

Seeking to escape a cold, windy and snowy UK during the festive period we headed for Sardinia for a week from Boxing Day. It too was cold, windy and snowy, but in an attractively warmer Mediterranean way.

On Sunday, tired (and in my case substantially bloodied) from a harsh two day mountain walk from which no photos survive, we set out from Cala Gonnone, a quiet town perched on the Eastern side of Sardinia, to walk to a beautiful beach called Cala Luna a few miles South.


Sardinian roads are pleasingly similar to UK roads		Sardinian skies are pleasingly dissimilar		We find a beach

We got bored of walking, flagged down a passing boat and blagged a lift there, cruising playfully over the calm seas, talking pidgin Italian to the swarthy boatman and acting like upper-class twats at Henley. We disembarked in the crescent moon bay of Cala Luna and we watched climbers scale the limestone cliffs whilst lunching on salami, cheese, wine and bread.


Carla worships Gus	Baz spots the taxi	A beach, yesterday	Gus proves his masculinity	I don't

Alas, no return lift was forthcoming, forcing us to walk. Baz n Gus put the hammer down on the sunny cliff-top trail, I hobbled painfully along at the back and Carla got lost somewhere inbetween. She turned up eventually


Swimming in December	Baz at Cala Gonnone	Cala Gonnone	Waiting for the bus	Waiting for the train

The next day we headed for Cagliari to rest our bones and drink the New Year in.


A Sardinian train (with Gus in it)	Baz was excited by the big boat	Some (dull) sights of Cagliari

The party crew pre-NYE			Our hotel on the docks

New Year's Eve in Cagliari town centre didn't start promisingly - we started out at the traditional English time of 6pm, but no bars seemed to be open and there were no people on the streets. Brief diversions into a dull Oirish bar and a busy restaurant left us dispirited and we headed back to the centre to try and buy some wine to drink quietly on the docks.

But by the time we had returned to the central streets it seemed that most of Sardinia was drinking in the main square and partying to the live music. By the time Zucchero (fortunately without Paul Young) hit the stage the party had really kicked of. There were 80000 people ripped to the tits on cheap wine and dodgy hooch, firecrackers and bottles rained down onto a rapidly cleared area of the piazza, a conga snaked its way through the streets, random Sardinians practised their English on us and our new Mancunian friends. The overriding memory of the evening is laughing at an immaculately dressed pair of Italians throwing firecrackers at a waiter and their wives before saluting us and giving us a bottle of wine, a large cake and some fuck-off bangers that put a hole in Baz' trousers from 15 feet away.


The children play		Sun on an empty theme park

New Year's Day was an altogether quieter affair. We gently wandered the quiet streets of the old town in the cool winter sun, stopping in a piazza to laugh at some smartly dressed young Sardinian kids play in the sun whilst their family looked on . Just soaking up the quiet emptiness of a tourist free town.

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