3 common misbeliefs about Sardinia – Part 1
Sardinian misbeliefs debunked (-some at least). Before travelling to a new place most of us go to the web to search for information. But it is easy to get lost down the black hole of the Internet. This post covers some of the beliefs the potential traveller can come across when reading about Sardinia on the Internet.
Before I went to Sardinia for the first time, I spent a good deal of time on the internet searching for information – both useful information and not so useful information. Anything that could tell me something about this island and its people. I read something in one place and that led to another search and another web page and so on – down a dark and dirty rabbit hole of information sometimes.
A dry place with lots of sheep?
I knew nothing about Sardinia before I went the first time. The only thing I knew – or I thought I knew – was that it is a part of Italy and that they have lots of sheep and that it is dry and warm. So I certainly needed some more knowledge.
Official tourist sites were not what I was looking for, as I was in no need of a hotel or to find a good beach or restaurant or where to drive or take the train. Nor did I need a tourist guide or how to find my way around. I was going to spend my first 3 weeks with the locals so I could not have better tourist guides than that. What I wanted to know was more what other travellers (i.e. foreigners) had experienced and also about the culture and way of life on this island out in the Mediterranean.
In my quest for enlightenment, I came across A LOT of strange information. Some of it appeared in several different web sites, so in my ignorance, I took them to be representative of life on Sardinia, albeit from a foreigner’s point of view.
The interesting, or indeed the slightly perplexing thing, is that most of these beliefs turned out to be totally wrong. A misconception or an unlucky experience turned into a statement that ‘this is what Sardinia is like’. As I found out, even though you come across the same (mis)belief on several sites on the internet, the information in them is not necessarily correct.
The misbeliefs I came across the most were these:
Driving, no internet, the weather, nobody speaks English, deadly spiders, people are superstitious and prudent. In this Part, I will cover the first three and then other three in Part two .
Driving
One page I visited had a dramatic description of how aggressive and dangerous driving is on Sardinia. There were even questions on TripAdvisor from people asking if it really was safe to drive on Sardinia at all – giving me an impression that my safety could be at risk driving here. And me in my ignorance remembering a death defying taxi ride I had in Naples 20 years ago had no qualms in believing this could be true for Sardinia too.
Therefore I was apprehensive about driving and the first time I had to drive alone I was a tad scared. But I had no reason to whatsoever. Yes, they don’t have the same relationship to ‘personal space’ when they drive as we have up in the North of Europe, but they do not have aggressiveness going with it in my opinion. Yes, some like to speed and overtake where they shouldn’t, just like in any other European countries.
Driving here is not at all scary, being a cyclist or pedestrian is also alright – in fact they stop for pedestrians almost as much as we do in Norway where it’s regulated by law, the only difference is that here you can not EXPECT that they do so don’t waltz out in the road before you see they intend to stop.
No internet
According to a few sites, the internet on Sardinia is virtually non existing. Some said hotels and bars don’t offer WiFi and it’s hard to find a good connection. The hotel I stayed in once had super WiFi, and it was free.
Sardinia has a lot of wilderness and remote areas where there are no people living, and also mountainous areas. So of course there is no signal in many places. In the beginning I had a little portable Vodafone WiFi I could bring with me to wherever I was travelling and that one worked wherever there was a mobile signal. In towns, many cafe and bars also have reasonably good WiFi. My Norwegian Telenor mobile subscription works fine everywhere there’s a phone signal.
Weather
Tourist sites like to promote Sardinia as having only nice weather – and yes that is true for most of the summer. But the wind can be quite strong and with that, flying sand on the beach, which is quite uncomfortable. Sardinia is actually a very windy place. Maybe that’s why this is a good area for kite surfing.
I also had this notion that Sardinia is a dry place. Yes, last summer there was hardly any rain between June and end of October. BUT nature made up for that in February, March and start of April this year, when it was raining almost every single day! A hike in nature then required wellies rather than hiking boots. Also this spring and summer have been reasonably wet. But luckily bad weather does not hang around for long.
Conclusion
Simply and basically, don’t be as naive as me. Never take what you read on the internet as facts – even if you read the same thing on several different web sites. Remember that the advice on pages like TripAdvisor are only somebody’s personal opinion and might stem from misunderstandings or indeed an unlucky and unfortunate experience.
On that same note and in the same way: Please bear in mind that the above are my personal experiences from having spent around 8 months in total on Sardinia, mostly in the South West area. Somebody else might have totally different opinions and experiences (as is obvious when you search the internet).
In Part Two, I will present the other three of the six common misbeliefs I came across; that nobody speaks English, there are many deadly spiders and people are superstitious, prudent and unfriendly.
Lots of love,
Bee
A link to the official Sardinian tourist site