Our early May Bank holiday weekend was spent in a private villa overlooking the Mediterranean with 8 girls: Mei, Farrah, Steph, Kate, Carly, Harriet, Alex and Claire. Olie was the only boy in the house, It was lucky he had grown up with three sisters as at times, he had to tap into his feminine side when hair braiding became one evening's activity, Spice Girls hit the playlist and dinner time conversation turned to 'who was the best boyfriend character on Sex and the City.' But the great weather, beach, turquoise waters, wholesome Italian food (plenty of pasta) made it all worthwhile.
Birthday Celebrations
Our short Italian getaway was in honor of our friend Farrah's 30th birthday. The timing of the trip coincided with yet another week of cold, wet weather (UK winter had never actually ended) and we had already spent two consecutive weeks in London, so we were due for some overseas fun and sun.
The birthday girl
Olie, Farrah and Mei in the villa's pool
Travel Logistics
From a logistics perspective, Farrah coordinated all the accommodation, activities and our flights were synchronised with the majority of the other guests. As the departure time was around 7am on a Saturday morning, we all agreed to stay at the airport Hilton for the night before, to avoid the red-eye wake-up and mini-cab ride.
This sounded like a simple enough strategy. However things could have gone a bit pear shaped as our original plan was to bring luggage into work on the Thursday before the trip, and separately travel to the 'Gatwick' Hilton so we could make the most of the hotel room. Luckily, we were not that organised (or packed) by Wednesday night and we had to route ourselves back home on Thursday evening to get ready.
In doing so (and procrastinating for a number of hours), Mei read the boarding passes and came to the short conclusion that our flight actually departed from Stansted airport and we should check into that Hilton hotel. This added an extra 45 minutes to the travel time as we had to wait for a bus from Liverpool St station instead of a direct train from London Bridge for Gatwick Airport. The hours passed, the temperature dropped and it was around 1:15am before we finally made it into our hotel room, feel asleep only to wake up at 5am to catch the 6:15am shuttle to the terminal - so much for making use of the room!
Map of our travels
Cagliari Airport
Our flight to Sardinia (arriving at Cagliari airport) went smoothly, apart from being seated behind two rows of middle aged women on a high school reunion that were drinking the plane dry of Prosecco and retelling tales of their youth and wild ways to everyone. Luckily for us, the flight time was only 2.5 hours and we were treated to some great views of the coastline as the plane landed on the runway.
Torre delle Stelle
Our villa was located in a small estate within Torre delle Stelle, a hilly area bordered by beaches and blue shallow reefs. The journey to the villa was via a number of unpaved roads, led by the estate agent who could only speak a few words of English. We also met the villa's owner, who lived next door and told us many times to make sure we 'locked everything' before we headed out. By this time, it was mid-afternoon and we were all a bit hungry. There were a number of signs around the estate for a restaurant and supermarket, which we set out to find armed with a rough map. However, we forgot that Italy practices siesta between the hours of 2-5pm and every single shop was closed.
The beach at Torre delle Stelle
View of the beach from our villa
Supermarket Sweep
Frustrated, we decided to kill time on the beach where we worked on our tan and day-dreamed about the amazing Italian food we were going to eat that night. The supermarket re-opened by 5pm and we filled up a couple of trolley's worth of supplies. It was at that point that we realised that it was a long walk back to the villa with very heavy groceries. Thankfully, with some pleading hand gestures the shop keeper offered to drive the deliveries back to our place, although it turned out to be quite an ordeal as she wasn't sure of the location despite the estate being a fairly small community of houses.
Beautiful flowers
Homemade Italian FoodLater that night, the girls cooked up a home-made feast of pasta and salad that we ate on the balcony accompanied by a bottle of local red wine. We definitely could get used to the Sardinian way of life! Olie, Mei, Farrah and Steph tested the private pool - the temperature being a little cold than ideal. The night's entertainment concluded with some card games and then an early night sleep.
Pasta with homemade pasta sauce
Overlooking the pool
Boat Trip
Day two started with a pick up at a restaurant near our estate and a half an hour drive to the nearby town of Villasimius for a boat ride and snorkel excursion. On board the boat we thought it would be a day with a language barrier between our group (English speaking) and our hosts (Italian speaking). However, we soon discovered that the wife of the captain could speak French, and that became the common language understood and translated by at least half of our group.
All aboard for the boat cruise
Passing by the nearby islands
Many centuries of human history on Sardinia
Video of the beautiful beaches
Enjoying the deep blue sea
The sun emerged within an hour of leaving port, and we took up residence on the upper deck of the boat, sunning ourselves and holding onto the side railings as the boat rocked side to side in the choppy seas. Our first stop was a nearby island where the statue of Madonna had been buried on the sea floor for a number of years. Unfortunately whilst Olie, Mei and Farrah braved the cold seas, we were not able to find the statue, but saw a number of small interesting fish.
A vegetable and pasta based lunch was served by the wife of the captain. She put together an amazing meal in the confines of a tiny kitchen. We even tried to help out after the second pasta course by tidying up the plates, however we were told to sit back down as another dish was served. The captain came out afterwards and treated us to a shot of Limoncello and also for those who were brave, a shot of bootleg Creme de Cassis.
Where's Mei?
The rock formation where the statue of Madonna lies
Salad for lunch
Grilled eggplant
Relaxing on the top deck
Siesta Time
With our stomach's full, we settled ourselves down for a siesta on the top deck, lulled to sleep by the movement of the waves - at times making us slide from side to side. The weather held out until we arrived back at port, when the rain came back down for a quick shower. This was unfortunately timed to when we were on a 25 min walk back to the centre of Villasimius. So we rewarded ourselves with some local beer at a bar called Bacchus and some Coronas at another cafe up the main street.
Dinner was at a pizza restaurant at the top of the hill, recommended by the guy that organised the boat cruise. Food had its hit and misses. Pizza and Olie's fried calamari were winners, but Mei's steak (so tough, it may have been horsemeat - which was also on the menu) was definitely not a highlight. The birthday cake (tiramisu) came out for dessert and then whilst the restaurant's atmosphere pumped up like a nightclub, we were back in the mini-van for our 30 min journey back to Torre delle Stelle, and a 20+ min walk by the moonlight up the hill to our villa.
Fried calamari
Cured deli meats
Happy birthday Farrah!
Lightning Show
An electrical storm over the bay kept us entertained that night. We had hoped for days of beautiful weather across the entire weekend, but unfortunately Sunday started off with some decent downpours of rain. The day was spent lounging around the villa, in preparation for that night's party. A few of us headed back to the supermarket for supplies - the owner not offering us a delivery service this time around; and the others worked on the night's menu.
The lightning
Olie tried patiently for hours to capture this on camera
Colourful CharactersJust before dinner we all changed into our respective costumes for the night based on the colours that we had been allocated by the birthday girl. Olie = red. Mei = yellow. We came as two M and M characters.
Red and Yellow
Getting ready for the party
The girls
House Party
The night carried on with a lot of alcohol, singing along to everything from Queen to Spice Girls and even a midnight jump into the pool that we escaped from as we had already braved the cold water days before.
Keeping hydrated
Tequila in a tea-cup
Tequila shots
Hawaiian girl
Goodbye Sardinia
The next day, it was time for five of us to leave the villa and head to the airport. Saying goodbye to sunny Sardinia was very hard as we knew that cold, wet London weather would be greeting us on arrival at Stansted Airport. The four day weekend of sunshine had given us back some form of tan, we had made a heap of new friends and the boat cruise had given us a taste of the beautiful Mediterranean Sea - time to book in more holidays!
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Our early May Bank holiday weekend was spent in a private villa overlooking the Mediterranean with 8 girls: Mei, Farrah, Steph, Kate, Carly, Harriet, Alex and Claire. Olie was the only boy in the house, It was lucky he had grown up with three sisters as at times, he had to tap into his feminine side when hair braiding became one evening's activity, Spice Girls hit the playlist and dinner time conversation turned to 'who was the best boyfriend character on Sex and the City.' But the great weather, beach, turquoise waters, wholesome Italian food (plenty of pasta) made it all worthwhile.
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