Tarthesh (one of several spellings I saw) was easily the fanciest hotel of the trip. It was in the middle of nowhere - a destination in itself where spa services and the attached restaurant make it the kind of self contained place you may not want to leave. A small town of Guspin nearby offered a few shops, grocery store, gelateria and restaurants.

As nice as it was, it was foreign in an otherworldly way, not just a European or Italian sense. My immediate reaction was that of a Star Trek episode where the crew beam down to a planet that sort of looks like Earth, but really isn’t. The language, the ancient stylized dress, the color scheme and even the smell of the place were all alien, but not in a super modern sci-fi sense (though the hallways all had light sensors and turned on and off as they anticipated your every move).

There were many confusing design elements. The stone construction was at times perplexing. The dark stone of walls and steps and ramps sometimes blended into each other in such a way that you could easily trip because it was hard to see the change in terrain. There were glass panels everywhere and it was very easy to see how people could mistake them for doorways. There was a nice lawn (tended by robot mowers), but you didn't feel welcome to explore it. There are no paths leading to the grass and you were diverted to stay on the stone. This was frustrating in such an otherwise brown environment.

Our bathroom had a noisy fan. The kind of noise you expect from a Motel 6. The oversized glass shower door ran right into the shower head and the sound properties in the shower were bizarre. The standing sound wave from the fan was so intense that two people could not use the shower and talk and expect to understand each other.

I noticed broken or problematic things in the downstairs bathroom too. The paper dispenser was broken, faucets were confusing as hell and there were ants on the floor coming up out of a place in the floor where come caulking was missing. So for all of its poshness, Tarthesh didn’t quite impress on all levels.

We ate dinner at the hotel our first night, mostly because we were completely exhausted from the car/plane/car juggling we had to do to get there (note: gas stations are not open on Sundays.) The meal was wonderful (for the full report see our cuisine section), and we had our first Sardinian wine, probably the best of the trip. My fish was not descaled very well, and was very difficult to eat – leaving a mutilated marine carcass and some appetite left over. To compensate, the waiter brought us some cookies and introduced us to mirto, an herbal aperitif specific to the region made from myrtle. This was enjoyable and reminded me of Unicum, though sweeter.

Back in Guspin, we visited the local supermarket, LIDL, which to Americans would look much like an Aldi Foods. The main difference was that they also sold alcohol, including a local grappa, which I sampled back at the hotel before dinner while we watched the Italian news.

The American food section of LIDL.
Apparently, Americans grill everything... (well, we do.)

It was then that we learned of George Carlin’s passing, and the much more earth-shaking loss of the latest soccer finals to Spain. It was then that we knew that the subject of soccer was off limits for the rest of our trip. After a noisy shower we had a satisfying dinner at the Hotel Santa Maria restaurant in Guspin (see cuisine report).

After checkout the next morning, we went north for the next part of our Sardinian experience, a farm near Aggius. It was during the next stretch of travel that all doubts were confirmed – the Sardinian landscape has the most shades of brown possible. It is likely that the color brown was invented there, after many attempts to get it just right.

Along the way, we had lunch at a place called Red's Bar in the small town of Chiaramonti. Inside the restaurant looked like any other bar/sandwich shop just about anywhere else. The bathroom was another story. One memory that will stick with me is the hole in the floor. Not just a toilet without a seat. It was a hole in the concrete. Even more charming was the small window at neck level (pre-squat), which still puzzles me. Luckily, squatting was not necessary this time around.

Way down in the hole.

At an outside table placing our order, the waiter couldn’t understand my request for something “non carni”, so I got stuck with a proscuttio panini - basically a ham sandwich. Yes, all of the folks who know me as a semi-vegetarian (no red meat, including pork), go ahead and get your laughs out. It was all very entertaining to all of us, at least at first. Between the heat and the travel fatigue, opting out was not really an option because I needed something in my system.

Even before lunch, I was already a bit car sick from the constant left/right curvature of the road bouncing me around. This wasn’t Kristy’s fault, it was just the result of sitting in the back seat a bit too long, and we weren’t exactly driving a Lexus. In Positano the reason for the road’s serpentine construction was a coastline with an immediate drop of hundreds of feet. In Sardinia, even though we were nowhere near the sea at that point, it was the semi-mountainous terrain. It was similar to the most remote parts of Central and Northeast Pennsylvania. Except in Sardinia – unlike PA - I was tossing around in the back seat with a lead pig in my stomach. The after lunch portion of our trip to Aggius was a delicate balance of car sickness, potential food poisoning and the aftermath of the previous night’s wine and grappa.

We found our next stop, Il Muto Di Gallura (http://www.mutodigallura.com/) just in time. It was, of course, in the middle of nowhere, and I hate to think what would have happened had we missed the barely visible turn into the small parking lot. We were off the GPS grid, so it’s likely we would have driven for another hour or so, in which time I would have surely made the back seat a whole new experience.

Il Muto Di Gallura, named after a mute outlaw, is what is usually called an agritourism location where tourists can experience authentic regional cooking and living. It’s a popular way to experience a country, particularly for foodies like us. Everyone is treated like family and you are basically living in the same environment as the locals. If Tarthesh was the most posh, this was the most rustic experience. While there were air conditioners in the rooms (sort of a necessity to keep the really soft tourists happy), everything else about the place was low tech. Extremely small bathrooms; small but efficiently designed bedrooms.

A much needed nap, shower and rest in our cool room put me in a better mood, but it would take me the next 24 hours to truly recover from the drive and the sandwich. I explored the house and grounds lightly, realizing at any moment I may need to go back to the room. Some of the farm dogs took pity on me and acted as my guide through the grape orchard.

That first night we met a couple from Britain – Jay and Vicki, both professors. They were tandem cycling across the vast Sardinian brownishness. They were the only other (native) English speakers. I was encouraged to pull the guitar out, but admittedly did not give my best performance. We also met Paulo, a friend and neighbor to the farm and a cork farmer himself. Yes, cork as in bottles. We had, unknowingly, stumbled into one of the primary locations in the world where cork is farmed. So over the course of the next couple of days we saw the trees and harvesting process, as well as many items made from cork that we hadn’t previously considered. It always seemed to me that cork was one of those substances that just sort of “exists” and I never paid it much mind.

The next few days were extremely relaxing and one of the highlights of the entire trip. Part of this was the food of course (see our cuisine section). The farm also had their own local mierto and a wonderful mint aperitif. But aside from the foodie stuff, just roaming the farm was a treat. It was a snapshot of a simpler time, easily a location for a film of some sort.