teerex51
The Italian Scallion
The month of October has been pretty mild in Northern Italy and that encouraged us to squeeze in a fast and furious tour of Sardinia before giving our bikes a well-deserved break. My buddy Hook and I sailed on the overnight ferry to the island and landed on its NE coast in pre-dawn darkness. The Wx forecast promised clearing skies on the West side and that’s where we headed PDQ. High clouds were scudding to the South-East and a heavy mist was clogging the valleys as the sun came up.
As we eventually reached the Western coastline, sunny spells were becoming more frequent and the temperature began to rise. Our tires were already plenty warm since we’d been enjoying virtually deserted roads and excellent blacktop for 3 hours.
This is the spectacular Alghero-Bosa road, where Hook wrecked his FJR1300 in September, so he had to ride the C-14 to try and tame it this time.
Further south we came across the ruins of large mining plants, where lead was extracted between 1848 and the late 1980’s. Dozens of factory buildings, railway sidings and miners’ accommodations are slowly crumbling as there’s no interest to turn this area into a national park.
A few miles away, a dirt road leads to a solitary beach which is home to Europe’s largest sand dune complex. In late October there were maybe all of 3 people on the whole beach.
We returned to blacktop and to peg-scraping fun, eventually reaching the island’s south in the evening. The next day we continued our anti-clockwise tour and began to climb up the East coast of Sardinia. We crossed several small hillside villages and had to wonder why anybody would want to live here.
Roughly halfway up the eastern side of the island, we stopped at the seaport of Arbatax for a colorful photo op.
From here the coastal road rapidly winds uphill into the rugged Gennargentu range and reaches elevation 3,500 ft before affording an exhilarating downhill ride to the town of Dorgali (below) and eventually back to the coast again.
Before we knew it, we’d reached the coastal village of Palau where you can board a small ferry for the 10-minute crossing to the island of La Maddalena.
This is where the US Sixth Fleet boomers were stationed until recently, and more precisely on the island of Santo Stefano which is shown in the very center of the picture.
By the time we rolled off the car-ferry into La Maddalena’s center, the temperature had reached the mid-80s, not at all uncommon for this island in October.
The next day we took a boat tour of the archipelago and its incredibly shaped rocks. This below is the Witch’s Head on the small island of Spargi. You can spend whole days checking out all the countless coves and bays.
Unfortunately, our return trip to the mainland was only hours away. We left La Maddalena as the sun was setting in an almost cloudless sky. The ship’s starboard side thrusters were pushing away from the jetty as the bow ramp pointed West into the sunset and headed for the harbor of Palau.
As we got closer to the opposite shore, you could see the unique skyline of this rocky coast and the incredibly twisted shapes of its giant boulders and signature granite formations. A longer tour of Sardinia, we decided, is an absolute must for 2009.
Stef
As we eventually reached the Western coastline, sunny spells were becoming more frequent and the temperature began to rise. Our tires were already plenty warm since we’d been enjoying virtually deserted roads and excellent blacktop for 3 hours.
This is the spectacular Alghero-Bosa road, where Hook wrecked his FJR1300 in September, so he had to ride the C-14 to try and tame it this time.
Further south we came across the ruins of large mining plants, where lead was extracted between 1848 and the late 1980’s. Dozens of factory buildings, railway sidings and miners’ accommodations are slowly crumbling as there’s no interest to turn this area into a national park.
A few miles away, a dirt road leads to a solitary beach which is home to Europe’s largest sand dune complex. In late October there were maybe all of 3 people on the whole beach.
We returned to blacktop and to peg-scraping fun, eventually reaching the island’s south in the evening. The next day we continued our anti-clockwise tour and began to climb up the East coast of Sardinia. We crossed several small hillside villages and had to wonder why anybody would want to live here.
Roughly halfway up the eastern side of the island, we stopped at the seaport of Arbatax for a colorful photo op.
From here the coastal road rapidly winds uphill into the rugged Gennargentu range and reaches elevation 3,500 ft before affording an exhilarating downhill ride to the town of Dorgali (below) and eventually back to the coast again.
Before we knew it, we’d reached the coastal village of Palau where you can board a small ferry for the 10-minute crossing to the island of La Maddalena.
This is where the US Sixth Fleet boomers were stationed until recently, and more precisely on the island of Santo Stefano which is shown in the very center of the picture.
By the time we rolled off the car-ferry into La Maddalena’s center, the temperature had reached the mid-80s, not at all uncommon for this island in October.
The next day we took a boat tour of the archipelago and its incredibly shaped rocks. This below is the Witch’s Head on the small island of Spargi. You can spend whole days checking out all the countless coves and bays.
Unfortunately, our return trip to the mainland was only hours away. We left La Maddalena as the sun was setting in an almost cloudless sky. The ship’s starboard side thrusters were pushing away from the jetty as the bow ramp pointed West into the sunset and headed for the harbor of Palau.
As we got closer to the opposite shore, you could see the unique skyline of this rocky coast and the incredibly twisted shapes of its giant boulders and signature granite formations. A longer tour of Sardinia, we decided, is an absolute must for 2009.
Stef
