Majestic nature and first glimpses of spring: Sunday on the Southern coast

Ciao, people of HIVE!

In the last two weeks, I haven't been very present. I found a new job, and this led to a period of adjustment and a lot of commitments. I'm working now as a journalist for Sardinian television, preparing interviews and shooting reports for the news broadcast. I don't want to dwell so much on this topic, but I hope you are all well and that your activities here are going wonderfully.

Today, I want to tell you a simple story.
A few days ago, it was Sunday, and I took a road trip with my family in the south of Sardinia. It was a lovely day spent with them, my parents and my sister, just like in the old days when she and I were kids, and my parents were younger and healthier. It was a nice day for the simplicity of the things we lived, the moments we shared and because the weather was really warm. It was one of those days that make you feel the scent of Mediterranean spring in the air.

It all started last week, when we had to uproot two trees from the courtyard because they were sick. We decided to replace them with a walnut tree and an almond tree, so we went to buy them at Sgaravatti Garden Center, a well-known nursery in this area of Sardinia, not far from Cagliari, the island’s capital.
In addition to that, for a while, I had been wanting to buy a lavender plant, because lavender is one of my favorite scents.

Sgaravatti Garden Center is really a lovely place to spend a Sunday morning.
Right in front of the nursery, there is a large, well-maintained garden with a fountain, a green lawn and some birdcages – yellow and blue parrots, peacocks, swans.

After a walk outside, we entered the nursery with the idea of exploring it.

Right from the entrance, there were some fruit trees for sale, and beyond that there was a large room where small plants and ornamental flowers were sold, with beautiful decorative items, vases, perfumes and seeds for plants and flowers of all kinds.

The most beautiful part, however, is the outdoor area, where you can find colorful flowers, ornamental plants, fruit trees and much more.

Small tadpoles in stagnant water.

Peach blossoms.

Almond blossoms.

Mimosa.

Rosemary, one of my favorite Mediterranean scents.

Most of the trees cost a few dozen euros, especially the smaller and younger ones, but there are also more expensive options: for example, it's possible to buy a centuries-old olive tree for around 18,000 euros.

It was almost lunchtime, and since it was Sunday, the Garden Center was about to close. So, we quickly went to check out the area dedicated to flowers because I wanted to look for lavender.

I’ve already shown you several photos. Let me just show you the two plants I bought: a lavender plant (Lavandula angustifolia) and a lemon thyme plant, a variety I didn’t know existed, which has a wonderful scent that’s a mix between thyme and lemon (obviously).
My new lavender plant doesn’t emit any fragrance yet, but it should fully bloom around the middle of summer.

After the visit to Sgaravatti Garden Center, we got back on the road. It was lunchtime, and we wanted to find a place to eat the food we had prepared at home.
We didn’t take the same road back as we did on the way there, but headed south along the coast, to have lunch on some beach.

Just a few minutes by car, there’s a town called Pula, famous for its beautiful sea and a stunning archaeological site: Nora, an ancient metropolis, one of the oldest cities in the Western Mediterranean, founded by the Phoenicians and later inhabited by the Romans, who also chose it as the island’s capital.
The archaeological site is open to visitors and contains wonderful places, mosaics, columns, an amphitheater and thermal baths. I visited it when I was very young, and I remember it with great awe. However, on this Sunday, I couldn’t visit it again because I was with my family and they’re not very interested.

I settled for taking a walk along the seafront. Besides the archaeological area, there’s a cetacean rescue center, a Romanesque church, a restaurant and - of course - the beach.

The beach of Nora is very nice, although that Sunday it was crowded with many piles of seaweed brought to the shore by the storm from the previous night. I took a quick walk on the sand, and I would have liked for us to stop and eat here, but according to my family, there was too much wind, so we got back in the car.
In the next picture, you can see a salty pond on the other side of Nora, where we parked the car.

A short digression for my friends from northern countries. The yellow flowers you see in the photo are called acetosella gialla, (yellow oxalis in English). They’ve always been very common in Sardinia, as well as in America, Asia and South Africa. I want to share a childhood memory with you: as a child, when I was sitting in the garden with my grandfather, we would sometimes eat a couple of these flowers, which are edible and have a sour taste similar to lemon.

This year, I noticed them because they are present in incredible quantities in Sardinia. Billions and billions, millions of billions of yellow flowers crowding the landscapes, the meadows, the hills, the edges of the roads, the gardens, the banks of rivers and ponds, filling the eyes with color and loudly announcing – in their humble silence of flowers – that spring is on its way.

Between Pula and Teulada, you can find some of the most beautiful beaches in Sardinia and all of Italy. One of these is Tuerredda, named the best beach in Sardinia in 2022.
The road in this area is winding and quite rugged, climbing through hills of Mediterranean shrubs and rocks, passing by small, unremarkable villages, and offering breathtaking views of the blue sea.

The beach of Tuerredda as seen from the SP71.

I couldn’t take better photos, and in any case, the one you saw certainly doesn’t do justice to the beauty of Tuerredda. Therefore, I’ll show you some of the photos I took a few summers ago, when I went to Tuerredda with my cousin.

At this point, I’ll show you the beach where, after a few minutes of driving, we decided to stop and eat. It’s called Piscinnì beach, and we chose it because it was quite sheltered from the wind and very close to the road.

The rays of the sun on my skin, the calm, familiar and intense sound of the sea waves, the saltiness in the air, the scent of mastic, a glass of wine, the breeze that could barely reach us here... I lost myself in each of these things, completely relaxing and savoring a full immersion in nature.

There are many problems in the human world, problems of various sizes and importance, from small daily inconveniences to major international issues. Life is unpredictable, and I don’t know where I’ll be tomorrow, what I’ll be doing, or if and when I’ll leave Sardinia. But, listening to the loving voice of nature, in all its beauty and patience, one thing I feel I can say: a marvelous spring is set to bloom.

Thank you for being here, for your support and for your time. Feel free to share anything you'd like in the comments.
Otherwise, see you soon on the road ✌️🤠

@alecaltab

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