Sea Kayaking in Sardinia – Our Last Day

With the sea kayaking finished, Anna and I had an extra day in Sardinia. Breakfast was a somewhat quieter affair today as some of the party had already left. It was just Hannah, Vicky, Anna and I. The fare was the same as previous days, although the eggs seemed to have moved up a notch and were almost fully fledged omlettes today. Mmmm Mmm!

It was Easter Sunday which is a big day in Sardinia. From what we’d heard many people from the towns and cities flock to the Agriturismo’s for a lengthy lunch so they were gearing up for this. We bought a few items from the little produce shop they had, including some olive oil and hand cream for Helen and some Mirto for ourselves. It was then time to head out for a day of sight-seeing.

Alghero

Vicky stayed at the agriturismo waiting for a taxi to take her to the airport for her flight home. Hannah, Anna and myself caught the 10am bus into Alghero where we went our separate ways. Anna and I had a pleasant morning strolling around the old town.

We stopped for ice cream, we stopped for photos and we looked at the sea. There was quite a bit going on and plenty of people about. There were also various ceremonies and such like in the churches seeing as it was Easter Sunday. All of the streets of Old Town were bedecked with lanterns and it was all very scenic.

We sat down for a while to have lunch at a restaurant. We then caught the bus back to the agriturismo and chilled for the rest of the afternoon. The holiday was coming to an end, time for the journey home.

Getting Home

The flights to and from Sardinia hadn’t worked out great for us. We’d managed a direct flight out from Bristol but it landed in Olbia so we had to spend a day travelling across Sardinia to the agriturismo. Not a bad thing as we got to see parts of the island we might otherwise not have. There were no direct flights home though so we were flying into Dublin. The taxi to the airport went well, it was only 10 minutes away but it cost more than the train and bus tickets across the island combined! We were as usual quite early and I started to feel a little unwell. I get chest pains fairly often since my heart attack and sometimes just feel drained and weak. Now wasn’t the ideal time for such things but I don’t really get to choose!

In the end I just say on the floor and hoped it would go away. Thankfully Anna is good at looking after me in such situations and just gets on with what has to be done without moaning at me. After a while Anna was able to check in our bag and we could proceed through security and passport control. I wasn’t really with it and gave the man checking our Covid passes the wrong QR code. He just looked at me and said ‘nope’. Fortunately Anna pointed out that there were other QR codes on the back and when he scanned that it was accepted. I’m not sure what happens if that comes back as a ‘nope’ as well. The official checking them wasn’t really very dynamic and didn’t look willing to help. If you got a ‘Yep’ he’d let you through, if it was a ‘nope’ it was just tough luck!

There was a bit of a delay with the plane taking off and the family in the seat behind us started to kick off. The man was complaining about where his luggage was located. He was getting a little aggressive and came very close to being kicked off the plane. His wife was trying to calm him down but she was equally as frantic and their children were screaming. Eventually the man calmed down as did his wife, but the child screamed most of the way to Dublin.

I did at least start feeling a little better once we were in the air and my chest pains subsided somewhat. We flew over the street-lit towns and cities of France through clear skies.

Dublin

Dublin airport is huge!!! We landed, collected our luggage and then tried to find somewhere to sleep. It was just gone midnight and with our flight to Bristol leaving at 6:30am there had been no point checking into a hotel. By the time we had it would have been gone 1am and we would have to be back at the airport for 4am. All the comfy, padded bench seats were taken so instead we found a quiet and relatively dark area and picked a table to sit at. I put a towel on the floor under the table and lay out on that while Anna tried to get some sleep at the table. We were both fairly unsuccessful! It didn’t stay quiet for very long as a group of men sat at a table nearby and chatted and laughed throughout the night. Eventually, once the bag drop was open Anna took the bag down to drop it off and we got up and had a coffee and croissant from the Butlers Chocolate Cafe. Then we once again went through security checks and passport control etc.

Anna must have looked a little dodgy by now as they pulled her aside to swab her for drugs and did the same with her bag too. They then investigated the solar battery pack that she had in her bag. They let her through in the end and all was OK. Once through we found a huge, comfy seat that we could both lie out on. Anna did manage to fall asleep properly for a little while but we were joined by quite a few other people on this ‘platform’. They too fell asleep but I don’t think I managed to.

The flight from Dublin to Bristol was just a short hop really but I think we both managed to fall asleep for a short while. We had some amazing views of South Wales and the Bristol Channel and I could make out the Coast Path that I’d ran along. As we flew over Newport I could clearly see the Transporter Bridge and the other bridges I had passed along the way.

We then flew all the way around Bristol. Avonmouth docks could be seen as could Portishead and then the Clifton Suspension Bridge. We then flew around a whole collection of Hot Air Balloons that were out for a jaunt in the early morning sunshine and finally flew over Dundry and the Barrow Tanks before coming in to land.

There was no security or passport checks here so once we’d collected our bags it was straight outside to find Helen. Once again she had interrupted her day to come and collect us and had brought us snacks in the form of a banana and a smoothie each as well. We headed to her house via a short cut and stopped for a coffee and a chat. It was nice to catch up with them all and see the girls growing up!! Hopefully they’ll all come to Wales for a visit soon.

That wasn’t the end of the travelling though. It was now gone 9am. We’d been travelling since 6pm the following evening and had been up and about doing things for over 24 hours and we still had a long drive ahead of us. We jumped into the car and headed off. We did stop at a services for a toilet break (and a quick top up for the car) and then stopped again at Burger King in Builth Wells where we also both had a 20 minute snooze.

Once at home all was good. Morgan was fine and had been looking after the house, the cat and the robots. He had failed to eat any fruit or veg though and hadn’t put the bins out, but I guess we can’t have everything. It was time to unpack, chill, eat dinner and finally get some sleep.

As I write this we’ve had a full day to recover and a couple of nights sleep. You’ve guessed it, we’ve already started looking to see where our next trip could be!

Tags: holidaySardiniaTravel