A Day to Chill on the Beach

We promised this post would be about the Barbagia, a relatively remote area in the interior of Sardinia. By now, we've visited about a dozen towns in the Barbagia, and have a lot to write about. However, we decided to put that off a day or two.  Instead, today we decided stay closer to home and take a stroll to our nearby beach via a little-used 'percorso naturale' - nature walk - that starts near our house. It was a lovely day - a little overcast, but pleasantly warm, and with wildflowers and blossoms blooming everywhere.

The nature walk runs through a nature reserve that encompasses several lagoons, a pineta (beach pine) forest, ending at a white sand beach some ten kilometers long.  It passes a number of farms growing everything from oranges to artichokes to wine grapes, and inhabited by various collections of apparently very contented sheep, goats, cattle, and some enormous pigs.

The walk also offers gorgeous views of Posada, a colorful hill town spiraling up from the coastal plain, reaching towards the spectacular pinnacle of its iconic castle tower. We've seen similar views of Posada driving around the area, but somehow seeing it on foot, framed by the beach and lagoons, created an even more evocative scene.We almost felt like pilgrims meekly approaching a powerful shrine.

One thing we didn't pass on our nature walk were any other hikers. We saw a couple of bicyclists on a nearby road,  and, once we got to the beach, we waved to a few people fishing from the shore right at the end of the trail. But, once we starting hiking down the beach, all we heard was the lapping of the waves, and all we saw was an uninterrupted and unpeopled panorama of the glowingly white beach and the glistening sea, with the dark green pineta trees framing the scene.

We decided to walk back by a different route, walking through the sand dunes and pineta forest to a different road which reach the beach about a half-mile down the coast.  As soon moved inland just a few yards into the sand dunes, the sea noises quickly ceased and we were greeted with the sounds of the lagoon, mostly chirping birds, insects and frogs.  It was a great lesson in how very different micro-environments can coexist in very close proximity.