From the Beaches to a Thermal River
Trip Start
Aug 10, 2007
1
14
19
Trip End
Aug 29, 2007
Viddalba, Sardinia, Italy
Thursday, August 23, 2007
First we drank camomile tea in the bar and poor Georgie burnt his hand shoving a packet of sugar into Ellies tea and tipping it over. Luckily I had some lavender essence at hand.
As we were about to stroll down to the beach a rainstorm appeared,with thunder and lightning, and we had to shelter in the car reading more Harry Potter.
When there was no more rain we made our way to the beach and went in the sea. The sun came out as we were there. Ellie and I swam to some rocks and jumped from them into the water.
We heard English voices! A family from England had come, and we chatted, neither of us having met any other Brits previously on the island, which is a rare thing as usually Brits are everywhere buying up houses and so on, but here in this amazing land the glories seemed to be undiscovered. The Englishers we met were staying at a hotel in the mountains.
An old Italian lady on the beach came over to chat a few times, in Italian, and other young people there were often smiling our way. When we left there were many byes and waves.
We went to another beach nearby, the Romazza, with its so posh beachside hotel, and men smoking cigars while having their feet massaged on their sun loungers.
We strolled along their private stretch of beach and had a nice swim. There was a time when I could have stayed in a plush hotel like that, having been favoured by wealthy admirers in my past. Ellie wanted me to tell her the stories of how I'd met so many rich well-wishers. So I told her:
Bahrain Mike, I had met at the Croydon by election, he a Liberal and me SDP, delivering leaflets together;
the Maharajah, at a cafe in Kathmandu;
John Henley, at the British Embassy soiree in Kathmandu;
Posh John, at the Krishna ashram in Glastonbury;
Habib, on the internet;
Isaac, on Glastonbury High Street after he'd seen me singing at the Crop Circle conference.
I didn't have any rich admirers in France so maybe those days were over for me now. Though the nearest recent man to qualify would be Dutch Allard who came so close to taking me sailing around the Caribbean, then dumped me for having my new baby. He and I had met at Esperaza market.
On our way we journeyed, contemplating more beaches, checking out a campsite that turned out to be too expensive, and then rather impulsively we headed off inland, back to the mountains.
Keen to find another hot spring I looked on the map and saw a likely looking name, Terme di Castelduoro.
My tomtom took us to a place that seemed to be nothing in particular.
There was a track road that we went down for some way, then we returned back to the bigger road, at which a big car came to turn into the lane, so I asked 'Terme? Aqua?' and the driver indicated that the lane we'd been on was the way.
So we followed that car, on and on, taking different tracks, and then there it was, a river with steams at the sides. We went to point our toes in the water and it was warm. Amazing, a whole heated river! The man who had been driving indicated that we should swim. There was already one Italian couple in the waters, deep in intimate conversation.
We swam and lounged in the heat of the water, well into the darkness, so excited and happy for our discovery. There was a big lit up building on the other side of the river. When the couple moved on we were alone.
Then after some time a partying car of youths turned up, and we moved on to find a sleeping space for the night, choosing the nearby town of Vidalba.
There we bought take away pizzas and slept in the parking area of the village library.
