September 21 - visiting Burgos

... continuing with the non-linear description of my trip - here's a look back at the great day of riding and eating I had on September 21.

I went for a nice bike ride starting in Orgosolo, where I was staying, and promptly had to stop for this photo of farmers picking grapes for one of the local wines under a canopy of gentle clouds and a backdrop of the mountains of interior Sardinia.

Harvesting grapes in a visually stunning landscape

My lovely wife Anita is great at trip planning, and as a circulation clerk at our local library, she is good at finding the right resources for our trips. She lent me one of the library's guidebooks for Sardinia with the admonition that she doesn't like to take guidebooks on trips because she sees them coming back trashed. She's been happy to hear I've found a safe place for it in my luggage and it has survived nearly three weeks on the Island with nary a bent page.

One the guidebook suggestions is to visit the town of Burgos and specifically to visit it to see the castle at the top of the town. There was a long approach climb to Burgos, and I could see from a distance that the view of the city and from the tower was going to be spectacular. The fact that it was just a gorgeous warm day only added to my general level of happiness to be experiencing this.

The tower and town of Burgos

Right before you get to the tower, there is this amazing mural painted into the retaining wall. I took this as a multi-shot panorama stitched with Affinity Photo Pro and did a little AI sharpening / detail addition with Topaz AI photo.

Like most hill towns I've visited, the center is largely devoid of people in general and tourists in particular. I suspect that the main attraction of Sardinia is its beautiful beaches, and not their hopelessly beautiful towns in the interior. Since it was a pretty long climb and deep into the ride, I figured why not treat myself to a gelato? The square at the top had just a few locals hanging out, and the only gelato on offer was from a mass produced tub. That said - it was way better than just about anything you can get in the US.

Gelato in Burgos

Since the stop at Burgos was a little bit early in the ride. I decided to get lunch further on the ride in the tiny town of Ottana, which has a cool sculpture that greets you upon arrival.

The sculpture greeting visitors as they arrive in Ottana

Getting lunch became an adventure where I spent 15 minutes hunting around for a place to eat. The first option sold roasted meat and sandwiches, but since I knew it was going to be a 75 mile day, I wanted something more substantial. So I took the bait on the sign for Gregg Pizzeria, and after finally finding it - those of you who know me that I struggle with directions - it was closed.

My next step was to ask a local in the street where he would eat, and he recommended a hotel slightly outside of town. I rode up to it and found a nice hotel that was open and appeared to be abandoned. Then the one guy in the parking lot saw me and said to wait for the owner's arrival. The owner was one guy in a red Mustang, which I have no idea how you would drive through the local narrow streets, and I wasn't about to wait to find out how he would singlehandedly prep a meal in a reasonable timeframe.

Finally, I got out Tripadvisor and made sure to filter on open restaurants. Bingo! I found a little place in the middle of a residential neighborhood and promptly committed a faux pas upon entering when I asked a patron who I mistook for the proprietor if she had a menu.

Finally, a nice grandmotherly figure came out with a menu and I ordered Culurgiones, which is one of the traditional Sardinian pastas filled with pecorino cheese, but these were unusually stuffed with seafood, and they were quite tasty to boot. The restaurant must be a well liked place, because quite a few locals came by for lunch, and the police even came it to get their take out order.

Seafood culurgiones with fresh local tomatoes

The nice grandmother woman insisted on giving me a Mirtho digestif for the road, but with a substantial amount of the ride left combined with the warm weather and my tendency to get lost, I took a pass. But she really wanted to leave me with something and ended up giving me this delicious and soft biscotti unlike any of the hard jawbreakers we get stateside.

Yummy and unusual soft biscotti

For dinner, I tried to make reservations at a hotel with a restaurant in Orgosolo called Sa E Jana. When I called, they just said they only speak Italian and couldn't help me, which is totally in their rights - it's Italy, after all! I persisted by taking a 5 minute walk to attempt to Sa E Jana to get a reservation. First, I knocked on the door - no response. Next I tried the buzzer - a couple of minutes later and someone took my reservation with some assistance from Google translate.

Interestingly, when I went into dinner the one waitress on duty that evening spoke really good English even though she denied it. She was very excited to hear I and American and like a few people I have met here, she dreams of visiting because of what she sees about the US in the movies. But she did feel like she couldn't visit until after she retires in around 30 years. Even though I lamented about some of our country's issues, her enthusiasm for visiting the US didn't abate. It is always good to get that different perspective.

At the restaurant were quite a few locals including three three older animated folks who were sitting in the table close to me. Unlike the other patrons at the restaurant, they were absolutely not on their phones and were engaged at dinner for the whole time. It was great to eat dinner and just watch the three of them interact. I still can't figure out which (if any) of the two men was her husband!

Here are a few photos of my meal, which consisted of the obligatory pane carasau, a warmed up circle of pecorino, salad and pane vrattau, which is like lasagna, but uses pane carasau instead of pasta between the layers. Unlike lasagna, pane vrattau is traditionally served with an egg on top, which is exactly how mine arrived. For my meat course, I had "purpuza," which is seasoned pork meat, including bits from the neck area of the pig.