Schlagwort-Archive: beaches

Italy

Relaxing (or trying to) in Sardinia

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After our active time in the Dolomites, we hopped on a flight to Sardinia in need for some beaches and relax time. About half an hour drive from the airport of Olbia, we checked out some first beaches early in the morning – a great welcome to Sardinia!

We had booked a couple of nights accommodation in Orosei, a little village on the East coast of Sardinia close to a national park and some amazing beaches. The plan was to do some hikes over the next few days to check these out, but also to spend a lot of time soaking up the sun. Unfortunately, the weather was not as reliable anymore: with temperatures in the low 20s, frequent rain showers and some strong wind now and then it wasn’t quite the beach weather that we had hoped to encounter. But of course we made the best of it! Our first day hike took us to Cala Luna – a hike much further and trickier than we had expected, which got super muddy and slippery due to the rains. Cala Luna was beautiful though and absolutely worth the journey!

Next day, we went on a road trip to Cala Goloritzé which is said to be the most beautiful beach of Sardinia and you have to buy one of the limited permits in order to be allowed to hike there. It was super stormy that day and while there’s a cool pinnacle rock near the beach we couldn’t quite understand the hype around it. But maybe it’s different when the water is calm… Still, the hordes of people would probably anyways spoil it for us.

Unsatisfied, we drove around a bit more in the area, got to some nice viewpoints and visited the main beach at Santa Maria Navarrese – a broad stretch of sand which we kind of preferred over Goloritzé.

The next 2 days were rainy and cold. We spent one of them mainly relaxing in our accommodation and used the other one to drive across the island up to Castelsardo on the North coast of Sardinia. To be honest, it was a rather miserable day and the rain just didn’t want to stop. The interior of Sardinia is beautiful, but in the rain the most amazing viewpoints disappear into the clouds… We did one short stop in Orgosolo, a little town that is famous for its murals. Other than that, we just drove… to get to Castelsardo and checked into our accommodation at the earliest option possible.

Luckily, the sun was shining again the day after, but it stayed windy and rather chilly. We had quite a full day planned, driving all the way to Palau, the port where the ferries to Isla Maddalena depart from and then on to our accommodation on Maddalena. It’s not a far distance, but we wanted to stop at some beaches along the way.

One of the really worthwhile stops was Costa Paradiso – a bit of a strange empty resort place (not sure if it even is accessible for everyone during high season). It’s a super pretty part of the coastline with red rocks in crazy shapes. Super cool! We walked and climbed around there for quite a bit until we had to push on.

Another cool stop with some more crazy rocks was Capo Testa. It was super windy and cloudy when we arrived, but at least it was a nive area to walk around for a bit.

And then it was all about Maddalena! I won’t go into the details of what we did each day, because the days were quite comparable to each other. Basically, during our very last few days of this holiday, we tried to chill on the beach as much as possible. Maddalena and its wilder sister island Caprera offer loads of little beaches, so there was plenty, of choice. The weather was once again challenging though with lots of wind and cooler temperatures. Every day we ended up driving around for a while to find the prettiest and at the same time least windy beach possible. And it kept changing which side of the island that would be, even during the day. So we kept ourselves busy with the hunt for the perfect beach – sometimes more successful, sometimes a bit less so…

Overall, Maddalena is a beautiful place, same as what we have seen of Sardinia overall. We are not sure whether we were just unlucky with the weather or whether this is normal for end of September / beginning October. We wouldn’t want to be here in high season either, as the beaches seem to get super crowded then, so I’m not sure what the best time to visit Sardinia would be. We still really enjoyed our time here and can confirm that Sardinia has some of Europe’s most beautiful beaches and most turquoise water!

Mozambique, World Trip 2018-19

Mozambique – Beaches & Relax Time

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Mozambique – the last country of our world trip, the last 3 weeks of it! We decided to spend the majority of the time along the coast, relaxing on beautiful beaches, going for long beach walks, having a couple of beers each day, and generally just taking it slow before returning home.

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Our first stop along the coast was Tofo, which we reached after a long bus ride from Maputo. Here, we had booked ourselves a free diving course – something we had wanted to learn for a while now. It’s too bad that we only found a place to do this course at the end of our trip as it would have been handy for our snorkel trips in the South Pacific to know how to free dive. But well… better late, than never – and for the future, we have learned something! I also did 2 scuba dives during our time there – but was unlucky. Apparently the manta cleaning stations don’t really exist anymore, and as for the other big stuff… it’s a matter of luck. If you are not lucky (like me), there is not much to see – well, certainly not as much as expected.

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Nevertheless, we really liked Tofo. It was a relaxed place, we stayed at a nice hostel with a good vibe and a cheap shack in the village sold one of the best pizzas I have ever had outside Italy. The beach is a long stretch of sand – we went on walks in both directions over the days we spent in Tofo, and went for a swim here and there. Unfortunately, it was a bit cool for proper beach time. The water was cool, and outside temperatures didn’t climb too high either. Sometimes there was quite a breeze as well… And not just in Tofo, but in all the beach locations we visited.

After Tofo, we felt a bit more adventurous again and decided to stop by Pomene on our way to Vilankulos. Stopping by (getting there) took us a whole day and some very uncomfy rides that I was not in the mood for anymore. Definitely an adventure, but I’m not sure I would do it again… The beach in Pomene is beautiful though and has huge potential. At the moment, there is only one good accommodation option available – but I can imagine more and more popping up in the future. We loved going for walks on the beach – but were not too lucky with the weather as it was a bit grey and rainy sometimes.

So after 2 days, we ventured on to Vilankulos – a trip that once again took much longer than expected and was much more exhausting than we would have thought. In the end though… it was absolutely worth it!! Vilankulos is an amazing place, with big differences between high and low tide which creates beautiful sand banks and leaves the colourful local boats stranded during low tide. It was so beautiful!!

In the afternoon, some fishing boats would come back with their catch and people would gather around the boats to make their purchases. Vilankulos beach was not the typical beach to lay in the sun and chill, but a great place to watch the local life around you. We loved it!

During our time there, we also booked a boat tour to Bazaruto Archipelago. It was an awesome day!! Right when we arrived at the first island, we were lucky enough to spot a dugong. It stayed around for a bit, but was too fast for us when we got into the water. Really cool though – after being so unlucky in Vanuatu earlier during our world trip, we finally, finally saw a dugong!

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We then got to snorkel 2-Mile-Reef… WOW! We have seen quite some good reefs on this trip, but the coral here must be some of the healthiest we have seen. We also spotted plenty of marine life: some moray eels, blue spotted stingrays, turtles, loads and loads of beautiful fish – only the sharks were hiding from us. Too bad! Would have been cool to get a little shark-goodbye present on our trip 😉

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On Bazaruto Island, we climbed a sand dune which offered amazing views. It reminded me a bit of Whitsunday Islands in Australia, minus the hordes of people. Bazaruto remains rather untouristy so far – there were some other tours, but not many, and the groups were always small.

Beautiful, isn’t it!? After a delicious BBQ buffet lunch and some relaxing time, we drove along the coast of Benguera Island where we stopped for a little walk around too. It was pretty as well, but not as stunning as Bazaruto Island.

After these beautiful days in Vilankulos, we took a long bus ride back to Maputo, where we had to spend the night before venturing on to Ponta do Ouro next day. Our last beach stop! Originally, I had planned to do some diving here as well – but I couldn’t really motivate myself: the only good dive shop was closed for holidays and the other one didn’t seem professional. It was quite windy again and I had had my dose of sea sickness aka feeding the fish in Tofo. They were using rubber dinghys again which I hate as they are so bouncy and super uncomfy. And I just generally felt too lazy to go for it. So we spent our days once again doing beach walks, relaxing in the sun, taking it very slow and enjoying a beer or two. No, it wasn’t too bad 🙂

And with this… Mozambique and our whole trip came to an end! We bussed it back to Maputo, where after a short night we boarded a flight back to Europe. Bye, bye, Africa…

French Polynesia, World Trip 2018-19

Fakarava – the best of the Tuamotus

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Seems like we saved the best for the end! Our last island in the Tuamotus was a pleasant surprise: white sand beaches and underwater sharks galore! Fakarava’s North and South Passes are known for being among the best dive sites in the world…But after the rather disappointing dives in Tikehau and Rangiroa, we weren’t sure what to expect. Luckily, Fakarava delivered! We first dived the South Pass, which was a very choppy 2.5h boat ride away from the main island. But – it was worth it! Both dives were amazing: We finally saw rather healthy coral, lots of fish aaand…hundreds of sharks!! I’m not exaggerating. There were walls of grey reef sharks waiting for us underwater where we stopped a couple of times at different depths to admire the action. The second dive had some crazy currents and a little less shark action, but was still really great. Happy diving times!

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Another day, we dove the North Pass, which was only a 20min boat ride away. Much easier! I loved our one dive there and wished we could have done more still: Loads of fish – big schools – everywhere, here and there some grey reef sharks, not quite as many as in the South Pass, but still plenty. And beautiful coral! We had some nice drift during our dive and could just glide along and watch things. Awesome!

The rest of our time in Fakarava was spent cycling around the island and stopping at various spots for snorkelling. I was sooo happy to see some nice coral again after all the grey dead coral of Tikehau and Rangiroa. And there were always some sharks around, wherever you jumped into the water! Usually blacktips, but in town and around the harbour there are also a couple of shy lemon sharks which we tried to approach sometimes.

Above water, Fakarava was beautiful as well! I liked the main village Rotoava, quiet and peaceful, and finally we had some nice sandy beaches again! Especially the stretch at PK9 (kilometer 9 up North past the airport) is pretty with white sands, turquoise waters and of course photogenic palm trees. It was quite a cycle up there, but we managed to go twice. I had heard before that there is good snorkelling too, but when we went into the water here, we only saw dead coral. Maybe we should have swam out farther? But there were quite some waves every time we were there, so not the best snorkelling conditions anyways. More time to enjoy the beauty above water then!

We ended up liking Fakarava best out of the three islands we visited in the Tuamotus and would have probably traded a day in Tikehau or Rangiroa for more time in Fakarava in hindsight. If I was to return to French Polynesia, I wouldn’t mind going to Fakarava again for some more diving and lagoon tours, which we didn’t manage to do this time.