Day 5 – Sunday in Olbia, Sardinia

Today, our port of call was Olbia, on the island of Sardinia. We wanted a little adventure so we headed out on the Jeep Safari tour, and Jamie got to spend some quality time with the grandparents on the Train to Gallura. I don’t think Olbia is someplace that we’ll need to see again, but we really liked this tour. We were in a fairly beat-up Land Rover, with a driver and English-speaking guide, plus four other cruisers. We drove out of Olbia on some paved and unpaved streets, up over a mountain down into the valleys bellow. A lot of the rocky terrain and vegetation that reminded us of San Diego?!? We first visited San Giacomo, a small church in a rural area, where we learned about the island’s history and traditions. The Sardinians are very friendly and proud of their heritage. We happened to visit on a day where they were preparing for a multi-day religious/social festival (there are two or three of these types of events per year, usually in conjunction with a saint’s day). In the not too distant past, these gatherings at the church were one of the only ways that the locals saw each other, and met their future spouses. Now, all the children take buses to a central school, there is much better transportation and communication, but these festivals are still very significant in maintaining their sense of culture and history. The women were quick to point out that this was one of the only times that the men did the cooking! There were dozens of long cement picnic tables (maybe 50 feet long) and while we were there, people were arriving and beginning to stake out their section of a table with a brightly colored tablecloth. The church itself was humble, but very well cared for…

Then onto the archaeological site of “Giant’s Tomb,” one of many Bronze Age burial sites from around 1500 B.C. These sites were either specific to a geographic area or a clan of people, it’s still a mystery that archaeologists are exploring. These sites are different than ones found on the mainland, as they have not only the burial chamber, but a wall of vertical stones, shaped in a semi-circle where the living would meet and give offerings to the dead in the chamber trough a small arched door cut in the bottom of the center stone. There were no bones found in this particular tomb, but the rock walls and semi-circular area were intact. At this stop, we were also treated to some great local cheese, ham and wine. The cheese was a hard, white sheep’s cheese, delicious. The wine was a very respectable red, and Jim and I were not shy about pouring ourselves 2nds and 3rds! The setting was nice, at some picnic tables in the shade and we chatted with our fellow cruisers, several whom we had met on previous excursions and even a couple who remembered us from the Panama cruise!

The last stop was in the small town of San Pantaleo. It’s now an artist’s village, with another quaint church and great view of the surrounding mountains. The most interesting part of this stop was the bathroom adventure – Jamie needed to go and the restaurant had a “Turkish” style toilet (basically, a recessed, ceramic hole in the floor, with a place on either side for your feet and you squatted down to go). We of course made jokes about how difficult it is for women to use this type of toilet since we can’t aim…

We got back to the ship and swam in the afternoon with Jamie. Ann tried to get on-line using the T-Mobile card that had worked fine when testing at home, but she couldn’t figure out how to make it work overseas. She spent about an hour on the phone with various help desk folks and while doing some reconfiguration of the connection, the PC battery pooped out and the PC went into hibernate mode. That was the sign that it was time to drink and swim and worry about the blog later (smile).

Tonight was the show The Art of the Story. It was another well produced show with musical numbers from the various Disney movies. We headed back to the room right after to get some rest in preparation for the big day in Rome on Monday.

One of our complaints about the cruise was the number of pre-teens and young teenagers out in the hallways well into the night. I don’t know whether it was just Deck 6, but I have read some other blogs and they also mention Deck 6 – I think the attraction is the extra lobby area at mid-ship behind the glass elevators. In any case, we were on Deck 6 and this night, there was a game of tag going on up and down the hallway. At one point, Ann opened the door, stuck her head in the hall and asked them to please keep the noise down, people were trying to sleep. Well that didn’t work so more drastic measures were called for. After ongoing shouting, footsteps pounding as they are running up and down the halls, and “you’re it!” I had had enough. I got out of bed (still in my nightgown) and went out and caught one of them in the hall. I grabbed him by the arm (he’s probably 11). “Where’s your Key to the World?” I asked, thinking that I could get his name and cabin number and take him to his parents. “Uh, uh, I don’t have it.” So, my reply “Well, then, we’re going to Guest Services.” Still holding the teen by the arm, I walk him down the hallway to the elevators. His friends are tagging along, all trying to tell me “it wasn’t us, it wasn’t us.” We get on the elevator as a group and still in my nightgown, we march into the main lobby of the ship. It’s BUSY down there around 11pm!! Wow! And I’m not dressed for it. And there’s a line at Guest Services. I spy one of the “men in white” (an officer type on the ship) standing nearby and I decide he’s good enough. “Can you please help me? These children are playing tag in the halls, running up and down and yelling, can you please take care of this?” He reassures me that yes, he’ll find them someplace else to be and I get back on the elevator as quickly as possible and back to the room, wondering whether anyone I know saw me. I will say that at least that night there was no more noise. So, while it’s possible that no one on the ship I knew saw me, now EVERYONE I know can laugh with/at me for my nightgown adventure. And if the parents of the child in question happen to read this, at least you don’t have my last name?!? And my request is please make sure your children have the courtesy in the future to move their activities to the designated public areas like Deck 9 or the Stack!