Cabras day ride

November 9, 2023

Exploring Tharros in the rain

We woke up to grey skies and an expectation of rain starting later in the morning, with heavy rain coming in the afternoon. We were out the door shortly after 8 to visit the archaeological site of Tharros, a flat 14 km ride from Cabras.

We hit rush hour in this town of 9,000. It was not really all that busy, but the twisty streets are only as wide as a Fiat.

The courtyard of our great accommodation in Cabras, Gioia Guest House.

On our way to Tharros, we saw lots of water birds, including flamingoes and herons who were too far away for good photos.

We took a short detour off the main road to bike through the odd little village of San Salvatore. It was used in the past as a set for spaghetti westerns. Each year, it hosts a barefoot running race that commemorates hiding a religious relic from Moorish raiders in 1619. Today it looked well kept but uninhabited.

By the time we reached Tharros, it was raining pretty hard, and we were wearing our full rain gear for the first time this trip. We bought tickets from a delightful and informative guide, but the lousy weather kept our visit to this important site short. The guide said that last year, November weather was nice. Not today, that’s for sure. He suggested October as a great time to come.

The ruins of the ancient city, founded in the 8th century BCE and abandoned in the 11th century CE, are located on the southern end of the Sinis peninsula. This spot has been the location of a Nuragic settlement (Bronze Age), a Phoenician centre of commerce, a Carthaginian fortress, a Roman settlement, a Byzantine administrative centre, and the capital of Arborea (one of the four independent regions of Sardinia during the Middle Ages).

The lucky Romans had their choice of three separate thermal bath facilities at Tharros - too bad they’re all in ruins, because I’d have liked to have used one of them today! Although the townsite was abandoned in the 11th century, but there is also a Spanish defensive tower from the late 1500s.

The spaghetti western set village of San Salvatore. But it does seem like they are real houses, not fakes.

Roman columns at Tharros. They think from a temple.

Not the greatest day for a visit to an archaeological site next to the ocean.

The ride back to town was on very wet roads, but it quit raining for most of the way. The high today was about 15 C. This has been the coolest day of the trip, but it’s really still quite pleasant.

Back at our accommodation, we got dried off and warmed up with tea, then rested. We are both stilll dragging from the cold - I have a nasty cough, Sue’s cold is more in her head.

In the afternoon we walked to the archaeological museum in town. Very cool collection of artifacts and information from the Bronze Age up to Roman times, including some very cool statues the look remarkably like C-3PO.

Then we went to grocery store to pick up things for a possible train ride tomorrow. if It’s going to to rain again, we’ll spend the afternoon on the train back to Olbia and hope to get some dry rides in there before Sue returns her bike on the 12th. But if it’s dry in the morning, we’ll ride somewhere a bit further north to catch the train on Saturday.

We bought a 3 pack of Aperol spritz’s and watched Netflix until our chosen restaurant would open at 8 pm. But when we opened the door to go for dinner, it was raining so hard that we decided that walking even 100 m to the centre of town would be too far. And since we’re both still sick, it’s probably best to stay away from other people anyway. So we had a picnic dinner of olives, crackers, and cheese that we bought for the possible train ride. We know how to live it up, that’s for sure. 🥳

Today's ride: 29 km (18 miles)
Total: 511 km (317 miles)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	10
Comment on this entry	Comment	0