Brucatos Italy France Belgium 2015: Posting REALLY early today!

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Ciao!

What a beautiful island, and what a fabulous dinner! As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, after wonderful (and much needed) naps yesterday afternoon, we headed back out about 5:30 p.m. … just for a “little” drive to Chia beach, a few kilometers down the road. We stopped first at the Conad store (the checker is beginning to recognize us!) to pick up a few basics – wine, toothpaste – the few things that we had forgotten earlier. Then we were on our way to the beach. Well…you know how we like to drive…three hours later, we were looking for dinner.

Spanish-built watch tower

Just "watching!"

Our drive south turned into quite a loop trip, following a basically deserted but lovely road hugging the coastline. Somewhere in Sardinia’s history, it was owned by the Spanish for 400 years, who built a series of watch towers along the coast where we are staying, to protect the island from an invasion by the Ottoman Empire, including pirates from North Africa. (Still too early for us to tell if they are all over the island, but I wouldn’t be surprised.) But the watch towers make lovely photographs, and some of them seem to still be in excellent condition.

Yet another!

South coast of Sardinia

The views were spectacular – and there was so little traffic on the road that I was able to actually stop the car occasionally so that Robert could take pictures. Our route for today will take us back that way, as we are heading toward San Antioco, a little island off our larger island, and more ruins. At any rate, our plan today is to cover most of the southwest side of Sardinia, and then tomorrow getting into Cagliari to see their archeological museum. At least that’s the plan…We ended up traveling as far as Teulada where we circled back up into the mountains and back to Pula. (Teulada is interesting as every year they have an international sculpture competition. Sculptors are given a large block of something – marble, local stone, etc. – in June after a general “theme” is announced, and the sculptors have I think three months to “make” something. Some of the pieces are scattered in interested places throughout the town, which was interesting to see.)

We circled back to Pula to find a restaurant for dinner, and pulled up outside of Cucina Machri, on via Lamarmora. It had a limited but interesting menu, so we thought we would give it a try. And wow – what a place! As you walk into the door, you are basically confronted by the kitchen – behind panes of glass, but right there – you can immediately tell there is something going on; there is a chef in charge.

Slowed down for some goats in the road!

At 8:30 p.m. the restaurant wasn’t quite full, so we were able to be seated immediately, and over glasses of Prosecco and the most interesting “bread” we’d ever seen, we looked at the menu. The bread was absolutely paper thin, thinner even than Indian papadum, but absolutely delicious. (They have the menu available in Italian and in English. R asked for one of each, and it turns out that it was a good thing he did, as the items “lost much in translation” as the saying goes. Basic English; rather flowery Italian.)

First off, I am not a fish person, but R is, and the menu was predominately fish – everything from cuttlefish to snapper and squid ink…hmmm…R ordered the artichoke, cuttlefish and tomato starter, and said it was very good (albeit chewy). I had their Sardinian cheese plate. It was stunningly presented with probably six different cheeses along with small portions of courgette (squash) paste, an orange and a strawberry relish. It was just wonderful. The blue cheese just melted in my mouth, and the addition of the little “dressings” was amazing. Then, for mains, R had their red snapper plate; again, visually amazing, and I had their steak slices, which were perfectly cooked and came along with a bit of salad with some of the best cherry tomatoes I have ever had. Neither us of were really up for dessert, but really wanted to see what was available. I ended up with their chocolate cake with crème anglaise, and R had a little container of strawberries and custard along with some very delicate cookies. For me, the chocolate cake was basically flourless and full of nuts, of which I’m not that fond, but it, too, was beautifully presented. By this time, it was 10:30 p.m. and I was falling asleep and wanting to get to bed. So, back to the flat – on which I had forgotten to leave any outside lights, so talk about stumbling along in the dark…but we did manage to find the key hole and get the door open, but I still had to post yesterday’s blog…I made it to bed about 11:30 p.m. A very full and very fun kind of day!

Lots of love,

xxx

Oh, I made a note to say something about the Sardinian language, as it is everywhere here. We asked our Nora tour guide, Claudia, about it yesterday. She said that kids learn Italian in school, but Sardinian at home. She said it more closely resembles Spanish than it does Italian, and that it also is close to pure Latin. Interestingly, she made it a point to mention that Sardinian is a language, not a dialect. Apparently Sardinian is not taught in school because each village and town has their own version which differs somewhat one from the other – making it not one language that can be taught universally over the island. Interesting! Sardinian is definitely alive and well.

The Sardinian flag is also very interesting. To quote directly from Wikipedia (that source of all knowledge…): The Flag of the four Moors, or simply the four moors (I quattro mori in Italian, Is cuatru morus in Campidanese Sardinian/sos battor moros in Logudorese Sardinian) is the official flag of the autonomous region of Sardinia, Italy, and the historical flag and coat of arms of the Kingdom of Sardinia. Described as a "white field with a red cross and a bandaged Moor's head facing away from the luff [the edge close to the mast] in each quarter" (Regional Law 15 April 1999, n. 10, Article 1.)[1]

The flag is composed of the St. George Cross and four heads of Moors which in the past were blindfolded and turned towards the west. The heads are taken to represent the defeated Moors, first used in the seals of Aragonese kings and later transferred to the Kingdom of Sardinia. However, in 1999, the faces were turned to face the east (Italy) and un-blindfolded. Image result for sardinian flag