Category: Italy (Page 3 of 3)

Sardinia – 9.10.23

10 October 2023 / admin

Elephant Rock

Monday 9.10.23

We descend the slope to where the coach is waiting and we now commence to traverse the northern part of the island with our first pause at Elephant’s Rock which had two tombs carved inside and the rest of the shape resembles an Elephant. An interesting curiosity if nothing else.

Castelsardo is our stopping place for lunch and we are dropped a little out of the town and descend to the current centre which has a circular open space (I can hardly call it a square!). The town is dominated by (surprise, surprise) a Genoese fortress – Castello dei Doria! We do not have the time to walk up to the castle but survey the choice of restaurants before selecting a very light lunch and a drink.

DMU at Sorso for Sassari

Moving onwards our coach takes us to Sorso which is the terminus of a railway line. This line is operated by ARST – Sardinia regional transport – owned by the autonomous Sardinia regional administration. It is mainly a bus operator but also operates a small number of railways plus it is responsible for the Green Trains – one of which we have already covered. We join the train and head to Sassari – a major town on this side of the island – which is about 10km. It uses 950mm gauge in common with other secondary lines.

Our service is one of the relatively modern (2017) Stadler units – there are nine of these and they provide a pleasant environment for the 15 minute journey to the large station of Sassari where there is now a barrier between the lines showing the separate ownership of the ARST and the main operator which we will mention later.

Having booked into the hotel I return to the station in the hope of catching a train to Porto Torres – when I arrive at the station it is showing as delayed and the anticipated departure appears to be growing. Given the uncertainty I abandon the wait, which later turns out to be entirely justified as the service is terminated at Sassari and did not operate at all. So a length of uncovered railway.

Instead I walk back up the hill to the hotel and onwards to the Town Square plus some side streets to track down a restaurant. I only spot one candidate and initially reject it – but fellow travellers have been recommended to dine there so I retrace my steps to L’Assassino and book a table for later. Our dinner is excellent and apart from our fellow travellers the courtyard tables all seem to be full with locals so a well like restaurant.

Sardinia 8.10.23

9 October 2023 / admin

Railcar at Tempio Pausania

Sunday 8.10.23

Our first Sardinian train beckons today with a visit to the line between Luras and Tempio Pausania, a much truncated version of the entire route which stretched from Palau to Sassari. The Green Train website refers to a service between Palau and Tempio Pausania, but makes it clear on closer inspection that trains no longer run beyond Luras. It is clear when we reach Luras that nothing much passes this way – and certainly not beyond! The service at the moment appears to be two return trips on a Sunday starting at Tempio Pausania which has the sidings and workshop, so unlike many passengers we are travelling it out and back in the wrong direction!

Luras as a station feels remote – although there is a nearby factory and some housing it does not seem to have much more than farmland surrounding it. We have a modest wait before the train appears around the corner and comes to a halt at the platform. Almost immediately the engineers emerge waving spanners as something needs “fixing” before we can board the train for the return journey. It is a diesel railcar of some vintage which takes us away back along the line from whence it had come.

If anything it feels even hotter today – amazingly warm for the time of year. At Tempio Pausania our coach is awaiting us and transports us to Nuraghe Majori.

Nuraghe

Nuraghes are a major feature of the Sardinian landscape as they effectively amounted to the home of a small hilltop local community – and in consequence there may once have been 10,000 such erections. Inside it is not very large and provided a home for the extended village, a lookout point at the top to be aware of potential attacks, separate internal rooms with supposed uses – although the absolute function of the construction have been lost over time. There were spaces for fires with chimneys with a staircase to the higher levels.

We have lunch together today at a restaurant adjacent to the Nuraghe. Whilst the food was reasonable the local wine was disappointing to say the least!

We retrace our steps but this time the train for our journey is a loco hauled set of carriages which bumble along quite nicely.

Having suffered the difficulties of the upward gradients last night from sea level we decide not to emerge this evening but buy supplies in the supermarket adjacent to the front of the hotel (although at a markedly lower level). Wine, cheese and nibbles in hand we ascend to our room and have a quiet evening.

Corsica – Sardinia – 7.10.23

8 October 2023 / admin

Bonifacio Cliffs

Saturday 7.10.23

This morning it is bright and warm again and I have a wander around Sartené taking some photographs of the town – it is very steep to get out of the hotel but once at the higher level it is reasonably flat around the town centre and there are some welcoming restaurants around the square – very pleasant all the way round. Our coach has to leave the hotel with some careful navigation the wrong way along a one-way road – one of the hotel staff stands at the far end of the one-way stretch and prevents vehicles coming the other way as we exit.

We proceed through the southern part of the island to the port at Bonifacio, which like Calvi and Ajaccio has a string of restaurants along the water’s edge and we choose one for lunch. The weather remains unseasonably warm and it is very pleasant to be able to eat outdoors so often.

An inter-island and international ferry, M/F Ichnusa, provides the transport between France and Italy, With experience from our earlier ferry journey this time we secure our cases and carrying important items we are able to secure the cases in the facility at the rear of the ferry – no attempt to hoik them up numerous staircases this time. Leaving Bonifacio the cliffs are an outstanding feature which is duly recorded and we then head to Sardinia. Approach Teresa Gallura it is somewhat surprising when we reverse onto the berth. The ferry is a little unusual in that it is not a normal ro-ro – the vehicles do indeed roll on and off – but always at the stern as there is no ability to open at the bow end.

A new coach collects us to move us across to Palau where we are in a hotel for the next couple of nights. The hotel is approached by quite a steep slope and stairs making it memorable for the wrong reasons!

Once booked in and clothes slightly re-ordered as we are here for a couple of nights we wander down the hill to the town. There appears to be a variety of restaurants and we make our choice before having to face the climb back – it seems much further uphill!

Pisa 2.10.23

3 October 2023 / admin

Monday 2 October 2023

This morning we have a walking tour of Pisa. Even though it is October it is very warm – warmer than we might anticipate at 10am – and so we are all keen to be in the available shade. The Cathedral Square, which we visited a good few years ago, was busy then and busy again today – it looks like tourist numbers are as significant now as they were then.

Our earlier visit was very time limited and the walking tour is intended to explain the history and the architecture – but we have a free afternoon. We wander back the way we came to ensure we do not get lost and then I return to the Leaning Tower and acquire a ticket for a timed departure. Rather than standing in the sun for some of the wait I repair to the inside of the cathedral which is much cooler than outside.

The Tower is of course a bell tower so to prove that this time I managed the climb I have shown a close up of a bell from near the top of the tower which also shows some of the excellent stonework detail.

Pisa was the birthplace of Galileo Galilei and he lived here until the age of 10 then joining his family in Florence returning to Pisa when he enrolled at the University initially studying medicine until distracted by a swinging chandelier – the swings of which he measured with his heartbeats. He later changed degree and by the age of 25 was appointed to the chair of mathematics in the University in 1589, the same year as the Leaning Tower of Pisa experiment to determine the speed at which objects fall – although there seems to now be some doubt as to the reality of such an experiment – but hey nothing stands in the way of a good story!

There is a bronze statue of Galileo close to the location of his birthplace near the town centre which we saw as we walked through the town earlier in the day.

Dinner is with the group in another restaurant in the same street as the previous day, neither meal is particularly outstanding unfortunately.

Italy and France – 1.10.23

2 October 2023 / admin

Sunday 1 October 2023

Time for a new adventure, travelling this time with PTG Tours – with whom we visited the (undocumented) Douro Valley just about a year ago and we are partaking of another tour, in view of how well the previous one ran – this time Pisa, Corsica and then Sardinia. This is the first time the tour has run post-covid and inevitably the world has changed significantly since the operator wrote the original brochure for this tour and indeed there were uncertainties around aspects even at the time of our departure from the UK.

Unusually for my travels in recent times we are allowed onto the tarmac at Gatwick and head up the rear boarding steps as all operators are keen to minimise time on the ground and utilising the rear steps speeds up the process (and we are sitting near the rear so it suits us) and allows a photograph of the plane!

EasyJet provide our transport to Italy and this time Jackie and her luggage are re-united (unlike her return from Israel). We are a decent sized group enhanced by some Australians with further travellers due to join us in Sardinia, so quite a mixture. Most of the participants are, it seems, likely to be more interested in the scenery and similar rather than the trains, although to me this is a railway holiday with a hope to try and cover most of the railways on the two islands.

The good news is that our hotel is immediately adjacent to the Cathedral and the Leaning Tower and we walk past them to reach the street full of restaurants which we had previously identified as the location for dinner. We walk past a number and it is more or less a question of tossing a coin, we make a choice as finding the precise one we had found online was not simple (slight difference in name – I do spot the restaurant the following day).