Cabras to Ghilarza

November 10, 2023

Heading inland again

Spoiler alert - we started out with zero expectations, but this was a great day.

We woke up to some blue sky. Hurray! We decided to bike to Ghilzara instead of taking the train to Olbia today - Sue has until Sunday afternoon to return her bike, so there’s no rush. We chose ‘road biking’ as the routing option for today because we figured unpaved roads would be full of puddles after last night’s torrential rains.

Yikes - my chain was looking rusty after biking at sea level in the rain yesterday. So we did a bit of bike maintenance before heading out. Our tire pressures look good, and the chains got lubed.

We had a flat start to our ride, passing through closely spaced small towns decked out with murals, including San Vero Milis. We did a bit of looking around at the 13th century church that had great looking masonry.

We made a couple of stops in the town of Milis, including at the exterior of a church from the 12th century. And we toured the adjoining modern cemetery - with war dead from WW2, and locals from the 20th century up to present day. Where are the remains from the last 900 years? Do they get replaced? The new gravesites have lots of flowers and photos.
We had our coffee and cornetto break in the main piazza of Milis, we realized that there must’ve been a festival of some sort here yesterday - they were dismantling kiosks and tents. A man sat at the table beside us and starting chatting away. The waitress gestured at Sue with universal sign language not to talk to him. The local misfit?

Near Milis there were several orange groves, and we saw a lemon tree too - other than trees in yards, these are the first citrus groves we’ve seen.

More lovely murals on our route today. They all seem to be by the same artist.

This church had a mishmash of masonry. It was started in the 13th century, but not finished then.

Tents were coming down in Milis. I wonder what we missed?

We are in the land of tiny trucks. Or I am a giant!

We exited Milis on a very quiet provincial road that was chipsealed and full of potholes and puddles. No matter, since there was also zero traffic. That’s a fair trade. Unlike past days, we didn’t see ‘no hunting’ signs today, and I saw a shotgun shell casing on the road. And we saw some alarmingly big holes in street signs, presumably from rifle bullets and not a shotgun. There are lots of wild boar here apparently, although we haven’t seen any. I suppose they require a big bullet to take down. We did see a dead hedgehog today - not much eating on them.

We started our moderate 5 km climb for the day. At one point, we had to pass a free range bull who was on the road. We stopped, not wanting to annoy him. He stared at us for a while, then turned and went the other way.

Just past the top of our climb, the map said we’d find Nuraghe Ortei practically on the road. What’s a nuraghe? It is the main type of ancient megalithic edifice found in Sardinia, developed during the Nuragic Age between 1900 and 730 BCE. Today there are still over 7,000 of them on the island, and the nuraghe has come to be the symbol of Sardinia

Nuraghe Ortei was well camouflaged by trees, and we biked right past it. We were very glad to have backtracked because it was only a few feet from the side of road, and was easy to access. It is presumably on private land. Amazing!! Also amazing is that there was neither a sign pointing out the nuraghe nor a sign saying ‘keep out’. So we clambered over a low point in the rock fence and went exploring. You can go right inside. It is awe inspiring to think that this structure might be almost 4,000 years old.

After marveling at the nuraghe, we passed through the nice little town of Paulilatino and had another couple of fun sightings. We saw a pack of tiny dogs protecting sheep in a field outside of town. Small terrier type dogs. It was funny to see since were more accustomed to seeing dogs that look similar to Great Pyrenees, although a bit smaller. We also saw two men driving sheep right through town with help of a dog.

Then Komoot sent us off the pavement despite us having selected ‘road biking’. A word of warning: don’t try the Komoot route between Paulilatino and Ghilarza on a road bike. It was rough and had big puddles in places. We’re slow to pick up on clues and had gone a couple of kilometers when we met a man coming the other way in a car. He stopped and told us that there was a locked gate ahead, and that he had the key, and we should turn around. Consulting our phones, we saw that the alternate route was 17 km, and Komoot said we had only 7 km to go if we pressed on. Being stubborn types, we decided to go to the next junction, which was only 400 m away. There was no gate at that point, so we kept going once again. We eventually did come to a gate, but it wasn’t locked, just bolted. It blocked access to a farmyard- we could see a farmer, his cattle, and a couple of dogs. We decided to take our friend Margot’s advice about Italy and press on, asking forgiveness for our trespasses rather than permission. [A note to the wise - Margot doesn’t suggest purposely breaking rules in Switzerland or Germany- haha]. The farmer was a sweetheart - he told us there was a way to our destination, and he drew a map in the sand. It was only a few hundred metres more of wet road before we got back onto chipseal. I’m sure glad we ignored the man who said we’d encounter a locked gate. I wonder where he thought we were going?

We stopped to let this bull decide if he liked us.

If you don’t have bedsprings, you can make a gate from pallets.

Sue for scale. We had to scramble over a rock fence to get there.

Urban sheep drive. If you look carefully, you’ll see a dog at the rear left of the herd.

Starting our adventure route. The puddles got worse, but it wasn’t muddy.

The farmer was very sweet! He didn’t mind us on his property at all.

We stopped for lunch once we got to our destination of Ghilarza. I selected a yummy penne amatriciana, with salty chunks of guanciale.

We arrived at our B&B at 3 pm, just before a downpour started. We lucked out today with the route and the weather too. Good thing, because we’re still sick. Sue and I both now have deep coughs, but our sinuses are clearing up, and we’re not too exhausted. It’s amazing to see the virus progress in both of us in parallel. We won’t push things distance-wise as long as our lungs are full of gunk.

A bonus treat this fine day? I finally have a quiet bike saddle!!! There was no creaking all day. The ‘fix’ was letting it get absolutely soaked by rain in Cabras, where the bike storage was secure but uncovered.

In Ghilarza, we had pizza for dinner at a local take-out wood-fired oven restaurant. We ate in and sat at one of the few tables, but the pizza was served in boxes and our beer was in plastic glasses. No wine served here, surprisingly. Fun pizza facts from Sardinia: there are really a lot of pizza shops per capita, and they put all sorts of things on pizza that purists might not be happy with, including French fries. We had a pizza with Gorgonzola/walnuts/pears, and a second with arugula/buffalo mozzarella/mortadella/tomatoes. It was very busy with walk-in traffic, all local, and we enjoyed the 80’s techno pop music that took us back to our university days (A-Ha and Alphaville, anyone?). Two of the local carabinieri dropped in to pick up a pizza just as we left. I’m pretty sure we’re the only tourists in town, so the multitude of pizza shops are not for us.

Let’s hope tomorrow’s forecast of good weather is correct, and that we’re on an improving health trend.

Today's ride: 41 km (25 miles)
Total: 552 km (343 miles)

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Scott AndersonGood to see you have such a fine day. You’re certainly due one!
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6 months ago

Rachael AndersonGreat day! I’m crossing my fingers for you.
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6 months ago