by Nick Taylor and Barbara Nevins Taylor

Our COVID staycation in New York City has us longing for places we visited. If we could safely get on a plane we would head for the mountains and beaches of Sardinia. And as you read on, you’ll see why.

In the middle of our stay on Sardinia we left the city of Alghero and  headed to Su Gologone a resort that promised mountain luxury near Oliena on the way to Sardinia’s east coast.

Our route that Tuesday took us through farm and sheep country. Neat, tightly-rolled hay bales lay strewn across cut fields.

At one point we heard this strange sound even through rolled-up car windows.

We looked to our right and saw  hundreds of sheep apparently herding themselves. We didn’t see dogs, or herders, just the sheep moving in an eerie flow toward some unseen point. 

 

The road took us higher in the mountains and the first thing that struck us as we neared Nuoro and the turn south to Oliena was the slab of sheer rock mountain that walled off the horizon to the east.

Mount Corrasi is the highest peak of the limestone massif called the Supramonte that attracts climbers and hikers to a part of Sardinia once known as a hotbed of banditry. The mountains of Sardinia provided good cover.

At Oliena we skirted Corrasi’s north end and then the Supramonte’s rock walls rose on our right.

A few miles east we found the turnoff to Su Gologone and drove into the resort.

What started as a country restaurant in 1967 has transformed into a lavish “experience hotel,” as the resort’s website puts it.

Our second-floor room

 gave onto a covered terrace with set-in upholstered couches

bracketing a huge square bathtub, intended for soaking after a long mountain hike or romance.

Moments after checking in, we were seated at Su Gologone’s terrace restaurant looking out over the swimming pool onto a long vista of rolling hills and olive groves.

In the countryside and the Barbagia region of Sardinia, roasted lamb, pig and goat supplant fish on the menu. 

We quickly and happily learned that at Su Gologonne they spit roast the meat and serve seasonal vegetables from their farm and garden. And when we sat down we found a thin pane carasau, a salty flatbread prepared by the hotel bakers on our table. Its name translates as “sheet music bread.”

Nick ordered lamb ribs, Barbara a pasta with tomatoes and eggplant and a zucchini salad with lemon.

The mountains that loomed west of us were part of the Gennargentu National Park.

Just to cover all the bases, Sardinia put the Bay of Orosei to the east into the same park, so whether you hike, bike, climb, swim, dive, go spelunking in caves or practically any recreation in between, you can find it all within a relatively few miles.

But for hikers and trekkers, the Supramonte and the Gennargentu mountains are a wealth of opportunity. Thirty-three trails cover terrain that will take you from canyons to peaks with spellbinding views.

That’s why most of our fellow guests at Su Gologone, whom we had started to meet at the swimming pool, had booked for several days, and barely managed to conceal their pity when we told them we were staying just one night. 

But we’d lucked out. That night’s special meal, offered only on Tuesdays, starred Sardinia’s inland specialties of roast suckling pig and roast lamb. Dark had fallen when we followed a candlelit path to the courtyard where we and our fellow diners would enjoy this feast.

 

Outside Matteo, in a slim black suit, welcomed the guests with almond sweets and Ororosa, a sparkling rose from the local winery Cantina Oliena.

The roasting chef and servers watched from the sidelines, behind them a fire pit where the roasted pig and lamb were resting.

 

A table in the middle of the courtyard groaned with a dizzying array of locally-sourced starters: ham and sausage from Oliena, bacon with cardoons, coppa with artichokes, Oliena cheeses with vegetable and fruit jams and sauces, pan-fried fresh tomatoes and artichokes, empanadas, casadinas (ricotta and pecorino tarts) with artichokes. As we loaded our plates the multi-lingual Matteo gave us table assignments, grouped according to language.

We sat with a young New York couple, Jordan and Daniel, and an English couple, Dean and Liz. Jordan sells real estate and Daniel is the creative director at a hot ad agency; like us, they live in the Village. Liz, a fashion photographer, and Dean, an actor, were there to celebrate her fortieth birthday.

And they were New Yorkers-to-be for a short while.  Dean was  featured actor in “The Ferryman,” an IRA-era Irish play that’s conquered London’s West End and went on to win the 2019 Tony Award for Best Play.

Together we had a lot to talk about. It was the first time Donald Trump’s name had come up in conversation since we’d been in Sardinia. And everyone at the table worried about the direction of the United States, its policy of separating immigrant children from families at the border, Trump’s bromance with Putin, and the seething anger and resentment of Trump’s supporters.

And Dean, it turned out, sandwiched a career in dog training in among his acting gigs. Nick asked him if dogs could tell time. “Not really,” he said. “Unless you count the time since their last meal. They know when they’re hungry.” That led to a talk about animal intelligence, especially that of octopi. Dean said they were too smart to eat, so he’d stopped. We’re still thinking about that.

Meanwhile, the food (and wine) kept coming, so much that when a server offered raviolis in tomato sauce on top of the array of starters some of us shook her off to save room for the roast meats and the salads, fresh fruits and desserts to follow. 

We all stumbled off to our rooms after a couple of hours and slept soundly. Tomorrow, while the others stayed on, we headed for the coast.

We left Su Gologone reluctantly, the tastes and conversations of our meal the night before still on our minds.

But every day revealed something new and we wanted to explore more of Sardinia’s mountains and beaches.

And Orgosolo called to us. The remote town high in Sardinia’s mountains south of Oliena is known for its lawless past. This Sardinian version of Deadwood in the American Wild West, a “legendary bandit village” according to the guidebooks, seemed worth a detour before our drive to the coast. It wasn’t far, about 25 km, but the distance didn’t tell the story. 

We followed the signs onto a provincial road and soon had it all to ourselves. Hairpin turns took us up and down hillsides as we drove without another car in sight.

Mudslides had dumped piles of dirt on the road and it dried where it fell with no traffic to disturb or disperse it.

Finally we saw, high in the distance, what had to be Orgosolo, and it winked in and out as the switchbacks led us ever higher. When another car appeared far behind us, I envisioned a village bandit returned from the past to take advantage of tourists on the deserted road. 

When we finished the climb we’d reached a mountaintop aerie, with stunning views that went on for miles. But Orgosolo‘s present proved less romantic than its past.

Legend has it that bandit forebears once nailed death notices to the church door targeting their next victims, and its high crime rate earned the nickname “village of the murderers.” Its remote and hard-to-reach location, deep in Sardinia’s mountains, meant pursuers and the law invaded at their peril.

 

Now the tourist buses we saw in the square spill out visitors to photograph the political murals that adorn town walls

‘

and shop at tired-looking souvenir stands.

Cashing in on the tourist trade seemed like the only banditry going on in this mountain hide-away and that wasn’t so romantic. But more power to them.

Our route east took us back through Oliena and past Su Cologone toward Dorgali. The vivid road signs in Italian that we breezed past without trying to read snapped into focus when we approached a barricaded bridge and had to turn around.

The GPS was spotty and old fashioned Map Reading 101 got us to Dorgali. Just beyond it, a turnoff took us through a tunnel and then descended to the seaside.

We had chosen Cala Gonone because it seemed like a low-key antidote to the glittery Costa Smeralda. We’d read that the sandy beaches on the Golfo di Orosei are among Sardinia’s finest,  Through Booking.com, we reserved at Hotel La Favorita, which Barbara kept saying was above a pizza place and we tamped our expectations down.

Signs along the road advertised La Favorita, too. One of them called it “Motorbike Hotel.” That didn’t sound promising, but then a light went on. We’d seen some bike riders and a lot of motorcycle riders on our drive around Sardinia, and Nick remembered from his days driving a Kawasaki in the mountains of north Georgia just how much fun curvy mountain roads could be. Sardinia, if you could keep your eyes from straying to the scenery from the road, was a motorcycle rider’s paradise.

When we wound our way out of the mountains down the hill to the shore at Cala Gonone,

We found La Favorita at the heart of the town’s hotel and restaurant row on a one-way corniche along the water, a 10-minute walk from one end to the other.

Our sparkling clean third-floor room overlooking the Golfo di Orosei dispelled any doubts we had. It wasn’t luxurious, no hair dryer for example, but it was a perfect, simple beach hotel room. Yet it did have a basket of toiletries, some from the Bigelow Pharmacy, our local in New York.

We took the photo below later that evening.

Below the rooms, the restaurant-pizzeria occupied a spacious open terrace with a bar in one corner, and the menu looked delicious. A couple of tables at street level were good for people watching over drinks. But we didn’t see any signs of motorbikes. The restaurant also had tables across the street at the water’s edge. 

 

We ate a late lunch there — ceviche for Nick and tuna tartare for Barbara.

The beach, or the Luongamare Palmasera beckoned.

We put on our swimsuits and joined others who had the same idea.

Swimmers and sunbathers crowded the beach, even on a Wednesday. The pebbly and rocky shore meant that we need our jelly shoes to navigate our way to the water. 

They weren’t much good for swimming. Even so, the clear cool Golfo di Orosei water gave us a refreshing jolt and we enjoyed sitting out on the beach reading our books.

Walking the corniche afterward we joined an eclectic group, couples old and young, boys on skateboards, girls laughing with their friends, families with children. No people of color though, not even the African refugees we’d seen in other parts of Sardinia.

Beyond the last beach as we walked north, two long concrete piers jutted out and hooked toward each other to protect the town port and marina.

Cala Gonone is a great jumping off point to explore the bays, small beaches, the Grotto di Blu Marino and other caves along the the Golfo di Orsei.

Near the pier, expedition companies set up booths and offered party boat trips to the remote beaches.

You could also rent one of the rubber Zodiacs we’d seen moored offshore. They cost between 80 and 280 euros per day, plus fuel, and they carried eight to ten people. Most didn’t have a bimini top and it you went with others, you’d have to stay with the group all day. We decided to do a different kind of exploring the next day.

In the meantime, we pulled up a couple of bar stools at the edge of the beach.

and watched a full moon rise over the Tyrrhenian Sea.

We had made a late dinner reservation at La Favorita. While the hardworking owners, Pierre Luigi and Miriam, bill it as a “pizzeria,” it is in fact an excellent restaurant. 

We began with pasta con le sarde. How could we not.

Nick ordered grilled tuna, but Barbara hit the jackpot with sea bass baked in salt. It arrived table side in a white mound that Sandro, our waiter, cracked open with the back of a spoon.

Then he filleted it in an expert display that was brighter than the multiple silver bracelets he wore on both wrists and it landed on the plate mouthwateringly moist and fresh. We helped the fish down with one of Sardinia’s fine Vermentinos, and it was a meal to remember.

The eastern sun hit our eyelids early the next morning, and then came the sound of the surf through the windows we’d left open.

We pulled the curtains and dawdled so we barely caught breakfast before the typical spread of meats, cheeses, yoghurts, breads and fruit was cleared away.

We decided to spend the day exploring Sardinia’s archeology again, and after lunch, the rare sand beaches. So we geared up with a rented umbrella, snorkles and fins and set off to find a tomba di gigante.

Sardinia’s unique archeology includes ancient mass grave sites that, because of their huge and elaborate head markers of assembled and marked stones, have been called tombs of giants. Like the towers we’d seen at Barumini, they were built by the Bronze Age Nuragi. One was near Dorgali.  

This tomba di gigante, S’Ena ‘e Thomes, rates a mention in the Lonely Planet guidebook to Sardinia, but signs were non-existent.

The GPS on Barbara’s phone took over, and we followed its directions along dirt roads to a desolate looking farm field where the voice said, “You have reached your destination.”

A leaping dog on a chair warned us away from a nearby farm house, but we looked in the field.

Over a little rise and downhill from a bush with pink flowers we saw what we thought was the “tomb.”

and we spent a good bit of time investigating Nick’s ancestors.

We had made this trip to Sardinia, partially because a DNA analysis by 23 and Me told Nick he was 0.2 percent Sardinian. On our early stops to Barumini and Cagliari, we learned the Bronze-Age Nuragi were builders and seemed very precise and detail-oriented. That fit our methodical Nick perfectly. 

This mound had what might have been a big headstone, but if this was an archeological treasure it was sadly neglected. Rusted car doors formed barriers to keep looters or maybe the overly curious away, but it looked like a junk site. 

It turned out, we later discovered, the GPS misled us to a pile of junk. We missed the tomb of the giants completely.

We found the photo of the real thing on Wikipedia.

We drove through the hills to Dorgali, a jumping-off point for trekkers, hikers and bikers and people who want to combine mountain and beach vacations. We found a small restaurant called Sardegna Finger Food & Wine. It had set up tables in a square across from its entrance.

And we happily took seats under the shade of an old tree.

 

It said its speciality was Genovese pesto, good for Barbara, and Nick stuck with his seafood salad. Both, just right. 

After lunch, we set off for the beach. Our little tourist map showed Cala Cartoe just around a hill north of Cala Gonone. A piece of cake! We turned at the sign and anticipated feeling sand between our toes.

Minutes later we were climbing a mountain, not a hill, and I was wrenching the steering wheel from one extreme to the other on the sharpest hairpins we’d seen yet.

Nothing changed on the way down. After twenty minutes we parked next to other cars along the road, shouldered our rented gear and walked the final distance.

The beach opened up before us, a glorious sand crescent bracketed by steep cliffs at both ends and bright umbrellas and beach towels scattered in between.

It wasn’t Coney Island, or Jones Beach, in the summer, but popular enough that we passed a food truck and a stand renting chairs and umbrellas. A manned lifeguard stand rose in the middle of the beach.

Nearby we bound an open spot to stick our umbrella in the sand and spread out our towels.

After a few minutes Nick pulled on his rented mask and snorkel and took to the water. It was clear in the wide bay, but a clear view of rocks and sand and no fish, no color. And soon he was on the sandy beach to read what Commissario Brunetti was up to over in Venice on the Adriatic. We lazed the rest of the afternoon away.

Back in Cala Gonone — detouring through Dorgali on a longer, straighter, flatter road — we toasted the day with an evening prosecco.

This time for dinner Nick ordered the salt-baked sea bass and Barbara had hers grilled and again accompanied by a bottle of Sardinian Vermentino. We agreed that La Favorita had outperformed our expectations at every level, and we prepared to head south in the morning for our last two days in Sardinia.

 

Fleeing Alghero for Su Gologone Mountain Luxury