Capo Testa

Gauss speaking Italian with Leo and Marzia at Capo Testa. 

We drove with Leo and Marzia to the northernmost tip of Sardinia, Capo Testa, a point jutting into the Mediterranean adjacent to the town of Santa Teresa. Parking the car at a trailhead, we set off on a wide, paved track through flowering bushes. Capo Testa is a protected natural area with a sizeable population of tortoises, and as we paused to take a photo, one of them ambled onto the path.

We ascended to a spot overlooking a turquoise bay. Granite outcrops towered in front of us.

“This is where they quarried granite that was used for columns in Rome,” Leo told us. “They cut the rock up here at the top and then moved it down to the water to put it on some boats.”

After crested the ridge, we began picking our way down through the boulders, speculating on how tons of granite could be moved downhill using primitive methods. About halfway down the slope, a huge block of granite, perhaps fifteen feet on each side, lay in our path. It was girdled with an evenly spaced line of holes.

The rock that wouldn't break. The Romans left it where it was, and we found it.

“They would try to find a seam in the rock,” Leo explained, “and then make these holes. Then they put some wood in the holes and add water. This would usually make the rock break. But it didn’t work with this piece, so they left it here.”

Continuing down the hill, we came upon crude encampments—shelters huddled under rock overhangs, ovens crafted from cobbles. A young man with a brown, leathery face and dreadlocks sat on a boulder as if he were in his own living room.

Homemade oven. I want to build one of these in my back yard.

“There are hippies who live here,” Marzia told us, “but also some people just come here on vacation to camp without paying. Sometimes people say you must be very careful or they will steal your things or hurt you, but actually they are pretty harmless.”

Turquoise water. Nice.

We stopped for a few minutes at a sheltered little cove. The water was crystal clear and the colors brilliant: gold, olive, cobalt, or turquoise, depending on the depth and the plant life beneath the surface. Although the air was cool, the sun was relentless. We took a few minutes to apply sunscreen.

Gauss and Leo at the spot where barges were loaded with rock bound for Rome.

Next we headed around the point, walking narrow paths between prickly bushes and scrambling up the granite outcrops. 

Leo and Marzia find a wide spot in the path

Wildflowers on the point.

We stopped to look north, where we could easily see the limestone cliffs of Corsica, the red tile roofs of the town of Boniface, and a snow-capped ridge of mountains further inland.

We couldn't see London, but we could see France. The white cliffs are Corsica, not Dover. 

East of us on Capo Testa, two lighthouses came into view. That was our next destination. At points the narrow trail was easy to follow, a foot-wide bit of packed earth between the waist-high bushes. But elsewhere, it seemed to disappear among the rocks, and we had to backtrack several times after discovering that the route we had taken led nowhere. There were more rocks to climb and descend, and I was beginning to hurt. My artificial knees have served me well—I can walk five miles on flat ground, and bike twenty with no problem—but scrambling over the irregular terrain pushed the limits of what they wanted to do. It had been a wonderful walk, but I was relieved when we arrived at the wide, paved path leading to the lighthouses.

A military installation, the newer lighthouse was off limits, so we bypassed it. I took refuge in a bit of shade at the old lighthouse, and Marzia pulled some apples out of her backpack for a snack.

From there, it was an easy walk on to the car. We drove into town and parked within a couple blocks of the central piazza.

“I know a place where we can get very good pizza,” he remarked. “The owner is from Naples, so the pizza is the real thing. Also it is sometimes difficult to find the pizza at lunchtime.” Gauss and I had learned that lesson a few days earlier.

We followed him through the piazza, stopping several times while he chatted with restaurant owners who were acquaintances.

A block past the piazza, we climbed the steps to the second floor of a pizzeria. A wood-burning oven dominated the front room; we walked to the back, where we sat at a table looking out over the cerulean water. The pizzas were what we’d been hoping for: simple pizze margherite with tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil. The center of the crust was thin and crisp; the edges puffed, chewy, and charred. I nearly swooned with the first bite. Sorry, no photos. I was too busy eating.