April 2024: As part of a 3 weeklong baby bonding family trip with my 9-month-old daughter, Paula, and her mom, we visited Sardinia for 4 nights and 5 days. We started in Cagliari in the south of the island after arriving via a Ryan Air flight from Seville, Spain. We picked up our rental car in Cagliari and promptly started driving north to the Baunei Coast, where we would spend 3 nights before spending our last night in the far north of the island in Olbia.
Like with many of my trips, I seek out natural beauty and places with wilderness appeal and for Sardinia my focus was the massive coastal cliffs of the Baunei Coast located on the northeast of the island. What especially caught my attention about this place is home to what is known as Europe’s hardest hike-Selvaggio Blu-Wild Blue, a 7-day hike through the roadless wilderness of the Baunei Coast that involves trekking and climbing. I didn’t have time for this hike on this trip since I was with my family, but I figured we could see a small section of its wildness and we could do a few smaller hikes and for me this would be good enough.
About Sardinia
The island of Sardinia, 2nd largest in the Mediterranean after Sicily, is part of Italy but it is very unique and has very little in common with the Italian mainland. Sardinian people have a separate language, although they also speak Italian and a unique history. Across the island and also in the Baunei coast are thousands of stone towers called Nuraghe, which come from an ancient mysterious Sardinian civilization dating back to 730 BC. To this day very little is known about this civilization and even the purpose of the towers is unknown. There are theories they might be for a religious, funeral or defensive purpose but np one really knows. Sardinia might have even been an independent nation if it wasn’t for power mergers of different principalities of the region in the 1700’s that saw Sardinia becoming part of Italy.
Sardinia is very rural and mountainous and for me I felt that the main draw of Sardinia is its laid-back nature and natural highlights instead of the historical allure of mainland Italy. Although it is far less visited especially by foreign tourists, Sardinia does balloon with tourists in summer that come to experience it’s amazing Mediterranean beaches and coastlines. For this reason, I was happy we came at the end of April before tourism season when the weather was still likely to be warm and we didn’t have to compete with thousands of others for space.
Location of Sardinia
Our Guesthouse in Santa Maria Navarasse
We made our base Santa Maria Navarasse where we stayed in an Air BnB for 3 nights with easy access to the beach and to Baunei Coast hiking trails. The guesthouse, owned by a kind elderly Sardinian woman, who used google translate to speak with us, was small and cute and reminded me of a small elfin home with its small rooms and colorful folklorist interior. We loved our little guesthouse even though it had the most complicated recycling instructions of anyplace I have ever stayed, and the recycling cans also seemed to be designed for elves and we filled them up within just a few hours of our stay.
Santa maria Navarasse was a nice quiet town to stay for a few nights. It was small and walkable with a few restaurants and a grocery store. The town in itself was mostly new and not very interesting. It appeared to be a town built mainly for the summer tourist beach season, and many of the restaurants and cafes were closed at the end of April, with the tourist season not starting for another few weeks, but there were a few interesting places to visit. We were also within a stone’s throw of a watch tower from the 1700s overlooking a pebble beach with crystal clear waters and a medieval church dating back to 1000 AD surrounded by 1000year old wild olive trees. Unfortunately for most of our stay even though we had clear weather, the wind was fierce and cold, and Paula and our daughter picked up a bad cold that left us unable to do too much exploring as a family.
Paula and Indie in our guesthouse
Even though it was late April, it was cold outside and our plans for swimming in the mediterranean with indie were spoiled by the cold and instead of a bathing suit, most of the time she was in her bear suit.
The poor little baby had a cold and slept a lot during the trip
Old watch tower from 1700s on the beach
One afternoon the cold wind died down and the sea calmed, and we were able to take Indie to dip her feet into the water of the beach
One afternoon the cold wind died down and the sea calmed, and we were able to take Indie to dip her feet into the water of the beach
Baunai Village
To get to the Baunei cliffs we had to drive through Baunei village, a medieval stone village with cobble stone streets tucked away high in the mountains. Baunei was a sleepy town with a rich history that seemed centered on ecotourism and hiking for its livelihood. We had a tough time finding many places to eat since the majority of eateries were closed since we were just outside of the tourism season.
Baunei Village
Baunei Village
From Baunei, we drove further up into the mountains along a narrow dirt track that went into the wild Baunai mountains.
View from the mountain road above Baunei Village
Exploring the Baunei Coastline
Most of the Baunei Coast and its Mediterranean scrub forests and ancient olive trees are part of a protected national park. There are a few dirt roads that allow access to its hiking trails, but the majority of beaches can only be reached on foot via long arduous trails or by boat. Some of the beaches like Cala Goloritzè are protected from even boats and visitors have to swim certain distance from the boat to access the beach. This and other measures such as a limit to the number of visitors in summer are aimed to protect these ecologically sensitive places from the impact of too many visitors.
To visit the Baunei Coast, we drove up from Baunei on one of the dirt tracks and we aimlessly explored stopping to hike a few small sections of the coastal trail that were accessible from our vehicle. We stopped often to peer up at gnarled ancient olive trees and let flocks of goats pass across the road. Goats and donkeys-semi wild are common throughout the rural areas of Sardinia where the old ways of animal husbandry are still present, and some herds are still tended to by shepherds. We also visited one of the mysterious Nuraghe sites that was more of a pyramid of collapsed stones in the forest than a stone tower. Paula and I climbed through the thick brush to climb to the top of the stone pile, and we had the place to ourselves to reflect on the mysterious civilization of people that once lived here.
One of the lonely dirt tracks into the Baunei Coast
Paula and Indie at an old Olive Tree
Paula sitting on top of one of the ancient Nuraghe stone towers
Common billy goat in the backroads of Sardinia
A small section of the coastal trail near Punta Pedra Longa that we hiked that was too beautiful for my camera to capture. I was simply mesmerized by this coastline and the turquoise waters.
Indie and I hiking along the Baunei Coastline near Punta Pedra Longa
Picnic break in an ancient grove of olive trees, Punta Pedra Longa
Hiking to Cala Goloritzè
I initially hoped to explore the coastline via a daylong boat trip because the boat would promise to stop at a number of isolated beaches and caves, but the boat captain cancelled the trip because of rough seas. Instead, I decided to hike to Cala Goloritzè, a beautiful, isolated beach that is in a protected area with a pebble beach and large rock spire that can only be reached by a 1/2-day round trip grueling steep hike. Visitors can also reach the beach boat but can only do so via along swim since boats must moor far from the beach. Even though Cala Goloritzè is remote, I Knew it was popular and even during non-peak season for tourism, it can fill up quickly, So I decided to drive up to the trail head from Santa maria Narcasse before sunrise. I was one of the first hikers on the trail in the morning and I enjoyed the steep rocky trail through the wild Mediterranean scrub. Then when I arrived on because I was fortunate to have the solitude of the beautiful beach to myself for at least an hour before a few other hikers arrived. I went for a quick swim in the freezing water because I couldn’t come all this way and not go for a swim in such a paradise. The coastline was so wild, and it was hard for me to leave and deny my inner urge to swim farther down the coast and explore the nooks and crannies of the caves and secret coves. I could have easily of camped and explored this coastline for another week. As I started my long dry hike back with only the water I brought with me-there are no other sources of water along the way, I saw more hikers that appeared hopelessly un-prepared for the long round trip hike both in footwear and in clothing. I was happy I did my hike early to have the beach to myself because the beach was small, and it wouldn’t take many visitors for it to become crowded.
Me on the hike to Cala Goloritzè
Cala Goloritzè
Cala Goloritzè
Cala Goloritzè
From Santa Maria Navarrese we drove to the north of the island to Olbia, where we spent our last night at a guest house run by a Dutch woman. The drive was long and slow via small narrow winding rural roads that were barely wide enough on occasion for two lanes of traffic. I had to become accustomed to driving on these types of roads with no shoulder. Thankfully there wasn’t a lot of other traffic on the roads since other cars tended to drive aggressively and would pass me. We passed through mountains, tunnels and villages that I wish we had more time to explore. I was especially impressed by the extensive tunnel system in Sardinia. Sardinia and the Faroe Islands are the two most extensively tunneled places I have ever visited in my travels. Some of the tunnels in Sardinia were 10-20 minutes long. It was Sunday and most towns were quiet, restaurants and even gas stations closed. But Olbia was busy and there were lots of eateries for us to visit and we took a tuk tuk historical tour that was a complete waste of comfort and money. The driver of the tuk tuk didn’t speak English and instead put on a cassette tape in English to provide a brief and stale version of the town’s history and the uncomfortably cold and bumpy ride ended up teaching us very little. We did have a nice dinner in town and the next morning we flew directly from Olbia to Berlin, Germany to complete the last leg of our journey.
Family tuk tuk ride in Olbia