After experiencing the driving on an island in the Med for a few days, we immediately signed up to do the same thing in Sardinia.  Known for its beautiful beaches (some recently landing top spots in the world), Lea, again, managed to find us our first stop at…a winery!! Thus continuing our streak of chasing the grape, or “Shirley Valentining” our way across Europe.  She always wanted to drink a glass of wine in the country it was made, unfortunately for her she ended up with a 1980’s retsina, whereas we’re faring much better so far on delicious Vermentinos.

Our route from a night in Bonifacio, Corisca to Castelsardo, Sardinia was packed with at least three potential pain points in a row.  The ferry, the car service pickup and the rental.  The car service pickup had already been painful enough as we realised JUST after we booked the ferry that there were no rentals at the landing terminal, so we pre-organised a pick up, and then realised JUST before we left Aus that we’d booked a ride to a different town than where we’d booked the car, and found out JUST before leaving Corsica that the ride was cancelled.  Lea, being Lea, found an even better solution, but after a seamless ferry ride, was so nervous about the pickup she was a little panicked when we only saw one driver holding up a sign.  Disaster loomed. Only the lucky Steinarts were going to get away pain free.  Wait…being the cunning linguist he is, James couldn’t help but see the striking similarity of STEINART and STEWART…we were saved!!

Two out of three. Surely the car rental was going to be awful again!  So at a packed ferry terminal, in a tiny shopping mall we found a tiny desk with Europcar handwritten on a banner.  We. Are. Fucked.  After being ignored by one lady for a while, we were then ignored by another guy, before James, hoping he wasn’t hallucinating, read the magic word “Yaris” upside down.  It was with that, that this handsome attendant then threw his pickup line at James with “is automatic ok with you?” One could only reply with, “Si, marry me?!”

Sardinia was also amazing. Too big for 4 days, but we packed a lot in.  Lovely nights in Castelsardo, Alghero, Bosa and Cagliari, highlighted by:

• Our first bidets of the trip (and 100% strike rate by the end! Pun not intended, strike rate was not on usage, that’ll remain a mystery)
• Found a stunning antique bedside table James was desperate to take, only for Lea to counter that we can’t take wood home…not even pointing to the absurdity of taking a table in carry on
• Ate surprise lunches at wine tastings, including one of the best experiences being welcomed into the home of a tiny wine maker (by scale and height)
  • James tried to be so careful at this 2.5 hour tasting only to get to the final pairing, just about to get stuck into his ice-cream only for the wine maker to suddenly smother it in delicious 15 year old Vernacchia di Oristano (luckily, we thought, the final run home with the car was to be simple…more to come)
• Stumbled upon surprise festivals
• Got really confused what we were tasting when hearing Torbato as tomato (FYI Torbato is a local grape)
• Got to do more circles of Cagliari airport than expected (with the car screaming at us to put a seatbelt on the wine we’d put in the back seat ready for a quick escape) as we realised we’d got the drop off point wrong…then found out the other one was closed, then got to drive right into town to navigate one final parking solution
• Finally had a venison dinner so we could write about how expensive it was
• Lea put airport sandwich on best meals list of the trip list!

See all about Z2A2 here: Z2A2

And don’t forget the Z2A2 updates: Z2A2 list