July 2007 - Southeastern Coast, Sardinia - Marshes & Flamingoes

We took a drive from Santa Maria Navaresse southward along the east coast on the road that leads to Cagliari. By making this 40 mile trip, we nearly circled the island in the 3 weeks that we were there. The rental car company was shocked that were able to put 2,000 miles on the car in 3 weeks. We started our trip southward with a stop in Arbatax, the next resort town after Santa Maria.

Here is Casandra overlooking Cala Moresca, a pink stone beach with turquoise waters.From here we headed to Torre d Bari, a seaside resort developed around a 17th century Spanish tower built to defend from pirate attacks.Kenny climbed up the tower for a bird's eye view of this large cove and also to snap some great pictures of himself.

Then, after reading that the southern tip of the east coast is full of pink flamingoes, we went in search of them hoping to see more than we had seen near the souther coast.

On our way to Capo Comino, we stopped to see the flamingoes which reside year round at Noterri marsh separated from the sea by a strip of white sand.

From the marsh, we walked over to the beach called Costa Rei.

This long white sand beach gets quite windy and wavy.

We enjoyed watching the wind surfers and the small sailboats.

We were also fortunate to catch a glimpse of a herd of flamingoes flying over the shore.After cooling off in the rough water, we were inspired to build a sand castle, but not just an ordinary sand castle.We took our cues from the kids around us who build Nuraghis decorated with rocks just like the real thing. We were charmed by their connection to the ancient Sardinian civilization.