A huge reason for our visit to Sardinia was the draw of delicious farm fresh meals and local wines. When you bike all day, you not only work up a terrific hunger, you can also justify eating all sorts of food we regularly deny ourselves - pasta, bread, dessert…but I always forget how difficult it is to find food when you most need it when traveling in countries that have a strict dining timetable.
Breakfast so far has been pretty lean, and the heat has been pretty high, so we’ve been leaving at dawn and arriving by lunch at our agriturismo. We arrive starving yet hours from 1pm lunch, so we’ve learned to just sit down and ask for some food. The initial response is always “no, it’s impossible”. But the longer we sit, the more likely they are to start bringing us food! Next thing you know, fruits, croissants, yogurt, cured meats start appearing - all from their farm.
Many days we miss the lunch opportunity and buy food at a market to (try to) sustain us til 8pm dinner. But only if we catch a market while it’s open…the hours are cruelly irregular.
On the best days, we arrive just as lunch is starting!
And on the worst days, we eat whatever the cafe has. Yesterday we had climbed for hours and were dreaming of pizza, only to find that “pizzerias don’t open til dinner”. What?! We ate potato chips, chocolate croissants, peanuts, ice cream and a Twix bar, washed down with ice cold beers. Not so bad really - until we saw we had another 1000 feet to climb to our hotel. And no lunch there either.
Once we finally make it to dinner, it’s an obscene amount of food that is mostly given away to the farm animals (I hope). Heaps of meat (cured pork, beef and sheep) are the norm, in addition to multiple plates of pasta, while vegetables are oddly scarce. At least wine is abundant - I think 60% of our calories are coming from it.
The dinners are so huge, they look like something Waterboy’s mother would prepare! Unfortunately by the time we eat our stomachs have shrunk to the size of walnuts, and we end up leaving most of it behind…only to wake up starving at 4am. When it’s time for breakfast, we pack in as much packaged bread, yogurt and fruit as we can, but it doesn’t stick with you long. These are farms for goodness sake - where are the chickens and their life-sustaining eggs??
I love these trips, but I told Dennis I’d like to go on a vacation one day where we actually gain weight.
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