Stintino, Beaches... and More

Beach holiday, and more, in Sardinia (Stintino, Alghero, Pelosa beach, Saline beach) from 1 to 11 September 2008 by Ferny Forner September 1: Stintino, Pelosa beach We arrive in Porto Torres from Genoa at 8 in the morning and head by car for the Hotel Ancora in Stintino, which we had booked online (the ferries too). The hotel, immersed in trees and greenery, is a complex of small two-storey buildings, well camouflaged in the greenery, located between Stintino and Capo Falcone, about 15-20 minutes on foot from the famous Pelosa beach. While we wait for our room to be assigned we take an exploratory wander: in front of the hotel a large tree-lined garden with elegant tables and chairs, to one side a children's playground, then the arena where the evening entertainment takes place.

We head towards the beach, see the pool, available deckchairs, a bar, a little harbour; we, though, will always go to the Pelosa and the other beaches of the peninsula. Our room is assigned; it comes with air conditioning, a television, perhaps mounted too high, the bathroom is complete, the linen is changed every day, the hairdryer is handed over against a deposit, the same for the safe key, no wifi, but in the evening you can use the reception computer free of charge.

Meals are served in a large dining room; if you like you can choose to sit in the open garden, the serving dishes are set out on tables, self service applies except for pasta and meat which are served at dedicated stations, the menu changes at every meal and always includes excellent typical Sardinian dishes, the choice is wide too for desserts and ice-cream cakes, the cooking is excellent, in the evening the choice is enriched with a wide selection of meat and fish chosen on the spot, cooked on the griddle. The staff is very young and well trained. On arrival the club card is also charged, which for the whole period costs 37.14 per person, and which also entitles you to use the shuttle (very convenient given that parking at the Pelosa costs 1.5 euros an hour and it's hard to park (we often went on foot)); for the stay we paid about 1100 euros for two (full board) plus extras of course.

In the afternoon, after a short rest (we'd been awake for over 30 hours), we walk to the famous Pelosa beach (20 minutes); you get there along a comfortable, wide asphalted pavement, which we'll later discover runs from Stintino to Capo Falcone; the route is up and down, very sunny, with dense Mediterranean scrub vegetation on either side. The beach (very crowded), among the most famous in Italy, is quite wide, both in length and width, of very fine white sand, the slope is very gentle, so it suits children very much (indeed you see plenty of them), it's almost all free beach, but there are also traditional bathing establishments (few, luckily) with umbrellas and deckchairs.

The sea has fantastic transparency and reflections, you can see the bottom even in deep water, always very calm being protected from the winds and by the particular conformation of this area, even when the mistral blows nearby, thanks to the natural protection provided by Capo Falcone, Isola Piana and Asinara, which make this place almost a swimming pool. About 200 metres away is the Pelosetta, a beach of sand and rocks facing the little island of the Torre della Pelosa and Isola Piana. The view is magnificent. September 2: Stintino Morning spent at the Pelosa beach. In the afternoon we use the bicycles freely available to hotel guests to go to Stintino. The road is a continuous alternation of uphill and downhill stretches; the going is safe thanks to the very wide pavement that runs alongside the road and reaches as far as the village.

Unfortunately the bicycles' gears don't work, and on the steeper climbs we have to get off and cover the stretch on foot, a nuisance because the day is very hot and the road is entirely in the sun (about 4 km). On both sides of the road there are low bushes of Mediterranean scrub, typical of the island. Stintino is a small village; it has an interesting museum (the Tonnara Museum), the core of the old town, with low houses; the most touristy part is the one in front of the old harbour; we'll come here often, in the evening too, to sit in the two bar-restaurants on the Colombo seafront; the prices are very fair (coffee 1.3 euros at the table), in the evening they're crowded, there's a bit of music too; we take advantage of the tourist office to gather information material.

September 3: Saline beach Morning at the Pelosa; in the afternoon we decide to go to the Saline beach, with the convenient bus service that runs from Capo Falcone to the Country Village. The service is very convenient and good value (0.70 euros, a fixed price for any destination). The Saline beach is about 2-3 kilometres from Stintino (so about 6-7 km from the hotel); the bus stop is in front of the hotel. The route winds between roads surrounded by Mediterranean vegetation, small ponds and coves. The journey lasts 15 minutes; we get off about 200 metres from the beach; to reach the beach you cross the areas where salt pans once stood, you cross the old basins where the salt used to dry; in the small salt-pan pond you should also see flamingos, but I only see a few gulls.

The beach, whose name comes from the salt pans that characterised the area, is marked by a large tower that stands out at the start of the beach; it's very long, to the eye it seems to reach as far as Porto Torres, but I think that's an optical illusion; moreover, exploring it we discover that as you walk towards the Stagno San Nicola it takes on different names too (Puzzona beach, Punta d'Elice beach, Ezi Mannu beach etc.). Behind the beach there are several ponds and a little further off the Casaraccio pond, which we'll see better a few days later passing by bus.

We settle down with our mats; the beach is very beautiful, made of very small white pebbles (the stones look like grains of rice) and smooth; the beach is narrower than the Pelosa, certainly much less crowded, there are a few organised bathing establishments, well spaced from each other, the water is transparent with a greenish tint, the slope is gentle, though less gentle than the Pelosa. After dinner we walk to Capo Falcone and stop in the bar-restaurant where we enjoy a magnificent view of the Pelosa; the bar is quite nice and has a sea-view terrace, it's also a free hotspot, a lovely convenience to be able to use free wifi; we'll come more than once. (to be continued)