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Sabine basks in the sun on the "deck" of the Due Lune catamaran in the Mediterranean sea between Sardinia and Corsica.

Do you know how longs its been since I’ve sat on a beach? I’ll admit I miss Vancouver’s beach access, but those beaches don’t really compare to the ones Josh and I were soaking up on last week.

A year after our first foray into Italia, we were back, but with the other side of the family. After an exhausting five days touring my mom and her three friends around Berlin, we all went to the island of Sardinia, just off Italy’s west coast, for some much needed Vitamin D infusions.

We planned a one-week holiday in the northeastern corner of the Island and flew into Olbia, where we met the Cologne contingent of our holiday group (Oma, Uschi, Helmut and Olga). The area is very new, having mostly been developed just in the 1960s as a luxury resort. Its been used as location for James Bond and was the where Princess Diana enjoyed her last vacation.

It was just what we needed. The weather cooperated every second day, and without fail, we sat on pristine sand beaches and swam through the perfectly turquoise waters to cool down. The rest of the time? We were doing what we do best abroad: eating.

We were too busy eating food to take any pictures, so this is the only one we have resembling a meal time.

We didn’t have quite the same cooking lesson as we did when we were in Tuscany with the Devins clan, but we certainly took the menus to the limits.

While we stayed at the Hotel La Rocca in Baia Sardinia, the rest of our group stayed at La Murichessa, a bed & breakfast in the Sardinian hills run by Annalisa. Despite our “non-guest” status, we were invited to dinner almost every night. She and her assistant Radika cooked up nightly feasts that always included antipasti, a salad, home-made pasta, a regional meat specialty and dessert. It was amazing.

But its not always about the food.

Josh climbs up a random castle that could easily have been the set of a horror movie with us as the unsuspecting tourists who just drive up to it and just think its a cool old site... but little do we know...

If Josh were a pirate, he would most certainly go by the name of Captain Salty Stubble.

The inner harbour of Polto Quatu, which we visited because we saw this on a postcard in another town.

After lazing about the edges of the sea for five days, we hopped aboard the Due Lune catamaran captained by lawyer-turned-sailor Claudio to explore the sea itself. It was a beautiful day, with temperatures that lured you into the sea. We motored out just past La Maddalena Island and then Claudio let the sails rip and turned the engines off.

We puttered just past a beach that is now closed to the public because too many people had taken jars of its pink sand as a souvenir and anchored at another beach. We waited for lunch sunning ourselves in a boat-access-only beach and enjoyed a simple lunch that the sea air made us really hungry for.

The Due Lune sets sail.

And then, despite not waiting the fabled 30-minutes-after-lunch, I slowly went into the water (I’m sure it took me about 30 minutes to get into the water anyway). I swam all around the boat, adding another “done” thing to the list of Baby Devins: swam in the Mediterranean.

Josh swims around the Mediterranean. There was no point to his snorkel gear — nothing here but us people and a couple of jelly fish.

Lunch didn't just mean chow-time for us: It also meant that the sea gulls could get a little treat from Captain Claudio.

To cap the day off, we settled in about an hour away from the dock that the Due Lune calls home to watch a round of the Louis Vuitton regatta. It took a while, but the race finally began and we were stationed right by the buoy that the two ships had to go around. It was amazing how fast it went.

Team Italy vs. Team Russia compete for the Louis Vuitton cup (and sailed around buoys branded with the famous "VL" mongram).

After eight hours at sea, the Due Lune finally docked and we took our even-browner selves back to the Murichessa for one last dinner with the family.

The evening sun over the Mediterranean as we finish our mini-cruise of the islands.

We came back to Berlin, just in time to be greeted by summer weather and a city gripped in World Cup fever…

I was the first one to legitimately use the line “When in Rome…” on our holiday. Josh was furious he missed his chance and gave me such a lovely one. I felt slightly bad that I took the line away from him, but I couldn’t pass it up. It was just too good. It was in response to his comment on my shoes: “Well, those are rather romanesque” (they’re not at all really), and my response would be fairly obvious to anyone in that conversation.

I said: “Well. When in Rome…”

Rome was the last leg of our almost two-week adventure of Italy. We had eaten our way through Tuscany, explored the little known land of Monte Argentario and it was back to city life for renaissance, religion and a big birthday.

The Trevi Fountain by Bernini.

The city is one of those that you see something amazing around ever corner. Over the course of our four days, we exhausted ourselves wandering through the old part of the city. Each trip out we discovered new (to us) pieces of marble chipped away by some great master of the craft.

St. Peter’s Square and the Basilica in the background.

One morning at the Vatican wandering old halls filled with mind-boggling art and while the sistine chapel was breathtaking, it was the three rooms painted by Raphael that took me by surprise.

The Belvedere Torso in the Vatican.

The Swiss Guard of the Vatican have to wear this unfortunate number. My theory: it makes the Pope look good.

Signs all along the stairs warn you that sliding down the stairs on your butt can happen anytime.

We wandered around the Pantheon, up the Spanish Steps and through winding streets, dodging scooters coming at every direction.

The Spanish steps.

One evening, we went to the little shop on the corner and picked up all the things we needed for a delicious antipasti meal. We wove through the city to find the greenest space we could find and settled to eat amongst marble statues in the grounds of the Villa Borghese. For dessert, we drank in the sun setting over Piazza del Popolo.

Josh “fills in” for the head of this unfortunate statue in the park of Villa Borghese.
Sabine with the spread.

Gelato was had every night and finding meals could be a battle but we always made it work. When you go to Rome, avoid anything that looks like a cafeteria near any of the major sites — they’re all just rip offs. Go a few blocks away — even if your hangry (being ripped off will just make you hangrier). It will be worth it.

The grand colosseum

Josh’s birthday started with a text message at 5 a.m. (thanks Jeff) and after more sleep, but his 30 years into perspective by seeing sites more than 2,000 years old: The Colosseum, Circus Maximus and countless other ancient sites, spilling over into our last day in Italy, where we wandered around Palatine Hill and meandered through the Forum.

The birthday boy was well documented. He really doesn’t look 30, does he?
He certainly doesn’t act 30…

snap!snap!snap!

The view of the forum. There is so. much. stuff.

Columns, columns everywhere.

I’m still not sure how I felt about Rome. It was incredible to see all this city that has contributed so much to the world around us today but at the same time, it was a massive, hot, sticky city. It was dusty and dry and so developed, no natural part of the land that was there before Rome seems to exist.

We climbed back onto the plane exhausted and glad to be heading home to the lush European city we call home now.

Note: I let Josh handle the photography for the most part on this part of the trip, so my pictures are only a limited capture of the holiday. I’ll make sure he posts more of his on here. As always, you can click on the photo for a bigger version.

“The time has come,” the Walrus said, “to talk of many things: of shoes — and shops — and saling wax — of cabbages — and kings — and why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings.”

Ok, so really, it was just time to say good bye to the family and make our own way through Italy.

Since moving here, Josh and I have had a more relaxed attitude toward our travels around Europe. Our two European adventures that we had before moving here were carefully planned out, booked months in advance. Now we throw darts at the Google map.

Where our dart landed this time.

Before we went to the big city, we wanted a quiet weekend getaway. Josh wanted to roadtrip, I wanted seaside. Somewhere in there, a trip to Pisa was thrown in. So we scoured the map and hit the jackpot in this little nubbin of land on the west coast. More on that later.

Our chariot.

We trained to Florence, picking up our little Alfa Romeo for our journey: first stop Pisa. I’m so glad we did this as a stop along the way. Besides the big park where the famous tower leans, the city didn’t seem that great. I’m sure it has its gems, but not enough stood out to make us wish for more time there.

The cathedral in Pisa, with the tower in the background.

The very-much leaning Tower of Pisa.

We wrinkled our noses at all the hawkers selling fake watches and Bart Simpson underwear while laughing at all the tourists holding up the tower on their digital cameras. I even got suckered into taking one for a couple that didn’t speak English — that was interesting. But after an overpriced lunch, we were back on the road.

Two hours down, we hit our little jackpot. After what Rick Steves has done to the Cinque Terra, we hope he stays away from this place. We arrived at Porto Ercole on Monte Argentario in the late afternoon and were blown away.

The town of Porto Ercole.

A little hike up the hill.

A tree we saw at the top of the hill. Does anyone know what it is (besides awesome)?

Our hotel, the Bihotel, was just 12 rooms right on the water. Its a tiny little fishing village precariously built into the mountainside. We hiked around the mountain, with forts on every vantage point. It smelled just like the seaside should: brined fish. There wasn’t a word of English to be heard, not even our hotellier spoke anything useful. Dinner was pointing at the menu and hoping for the best. It was delicious.

The hill we hiked up.

The next morning, we took it slow, eating breakfast as late as possible and heading to the beach. All the little pieces of land that creat the lagoon between the mainland and Monte Argentario are lined with beaches. So we bought a cheap beach mat and got our last bits of relaxing in. As the clouds started to roll in, we packed up our strawmat and said goodbye to the beach.

Leaving the beach — you can see why in the background.

But we weren’t ready to head to Rome yet, so we asked the lady at the hotel to point us in the way of a must-see town. She recommended Capalbio, and we had no reason not to trust her. As we rounded a turn on our way there, we see a hill town with castle towers sticking up. It was Capalbio.

Josh on Capalbio’s medieval walls.

I snapped him snapping! Ha ha!

The town was quiet — nothing like the crowds of the other hill towns we visited while we were in Chianti. We snapped photos as we walked along the medieval castle walls, taking in our last views of vinyards and olive groves. Lunch was again pointing at the menu with a “per favore”, but we were twice lucky with the food. We were, after all, in Italy.

Streets of Capalbio.

I don’t think there was too much we had to worry about gastronimically.

More goofing.

Finally, the sun got to us and it was time to make the rest of the journey.

We were en route to Rome.