It wasn’t my idea, and we did stop after a while, but yes indeed, we tried to drive up a mountain in a fiat.

It was a very scenic marina with several noticeable nearby towns and a huge cave next door, so my Dad just happened to pass a rental car shop to rent this Fiat.

We decided to spend the day driving around the town, first going to a town called Oliena, which was covered in painted murals along the buildings that we simply walked through, stopping for gelato. From the place where we had lunch, just before, we saw another nearby town with some sort of stronghold in it, but we didn’t stop there, instead driving the other direction and some way up a mountain.

After we decided to get out and climb (gave up) we took several shortcuts from the road, scaling some loose gravel that proved very amusing on the way down, and a couple of rock walls, we reached the top, having already slowly driven most of the way, it wasn’t too long, so the view was far worth it:

As such, we slid all the way back to the car. It was quite fun for me- wish I could say the same for the soles of my shoes…

Back at the boat, the day we left, we anchored outside the cave- the Bue Marino. The cave is the longest in Italy, continuing underwater for some 22 kilometres. Due to many conservationists being dolts, we weren’t allowed to take photos, even without flash, and we could only walk for the first kilometre.

Even so, it was very interesting with sections, like the mirror room, where all the water reflects exactly the roof, and the candle room, where the thousand of stalactites grew from the roof like those really exaggerated wax candle things.

Except for the ones we ate of course…

After a few uneventful nights in various bays and ports, we stopped in the large marina of Porto Cervo. The marina is largely designed for superyachts and, as such, in high season, is the second most expensive marina in the world…

Due to the fact that it wasn’t tourist season yet, we got two nights for a mere 200 euro 😱; roughly 300 Australian dollars.

And the faulty wifi didn’t even work.

In the days we explored there, we took the tender to the old branch of the town, where we wandered and stumbled upon a Porsche conference- some of my friends, (you know who you are, don’t deny it) were really jealous.

I have to admit, the small, old, cheerful theme of the buildings didn’t really mix with the Gucci and Rolex shops in them.

Afterwards, we sailed to bay called Porto Sole (soh-ley). This port seemed innocent enough but was actually highly eventful….

That evening, after a dinner of pizza, I saw a gluten free Nutella pizza and I asked for it- now, I often ask for things like this but never expect to get it, so you can imagine my surprise when, five minutes later, after already eating a pizza, another one covered in chocolate was delivered to me.

Mwahahaha

I did manage to finish it, and indeed, stayed up late in to the night, which in fact proved useful- sort of.

After going to bed, I lay there for quite a while until I heard a grinding noise near my cabin. Thinking nothing of it, I kept lying there until my brother (the one that resembles Chewbacca) bursted I’m shouting that we had drifted anchor and was hitting the rocks.

I was the last up there, it was freezing, raining, and there were sharp rocks next to us, so I had to very reluctantly pull myself out.

After a rather exhilarating (well I, still on a sugar rush thought it was exhilarating) few minutes we got clear of the rocks, we attempted another three times to finally get the anchor stuck, all the while my bare feet were freezing to the point of numbness.

Bed was certainly a comfort that night.

Another few days later we found ourselves on another island with nothing but two restaurants and a mountain. A very friendly waiter chatted to us for a bit and said that they could have roughly 2000 people in one day in high season and that you couldn’t see nearby islands for excessive masses of boats everywhere!

Early next morning, well early for me since I’ve been waking up at past nine every day, we left to climb a mountain. The first half was easy enough, simple trails slowly winding up the mountain, the next quarter was trickier, with several steep ascents with ropes to help, the last quarter was so deterring that my mum and brother turned around and left me and my dad to navigate loose rocks and perilous ledges supported by only steel wire up to the top of the mountain.

It was definitely worth it though.

As a reference to the title, we have to ration certain foods due to being in an environment with limited electricity, water, and places to stop: a boat somewhere in the Mediterranean.

I do actually have some idea of where I am- just don’t tell my family or they’ll deny it…

Currently we are sailing along the coasts of Corsica and Sardinia, a French, and then an Italian pair of islands.

Both are renowned for idyllic coastlines and islands that we so happen to be cruising by for the next six months…

Negating this, we spent an extra night in the marina due to stormy weather and high swells…

The day after, despite some residue swells, we left port and sailed to Porto Tizzano, a somewhat remote little town where we did a long walk and threw seaweed balls at each other. Along the beach was a cool looking restaurant that we went to for dinner.

After a few island stops in between we decided to spend a couple of days at a rather impressive stronghold town called Bonifacio…

The photos should speak for themselves;

The town itself was situated over some very steep cliffs, some with caves in them- personally, if my house was 10 meters over a cave in to open ocean, I wouldn’t feel too safe.

In Bonifacio we went for a long walk along the walls and stronghold (believe me, it had no shortage of walls).

After Bonifacio, we made our way across to Sardinia, stopping on the way at a few islands. The first of which was called Lavezzi, where we spent time rock hopping aimlessly.

A few days later, we arrived in Sardinia.

From the Cinque Terre we drove north again back to Pisa (for the people who came; yes I remember what we did in between I just don’t feel like writing about it, except, of course, the wild boar pasta that was gluten free…).

Although, come to think of it, we did stop at Vinci, a place where a famous guy that you may know of called Leonardo (da Vinci), was born.

We went to the museum which was largely focused on his inventions.

From Pisa, we caught a ferry with a bunch of faulty restaurants (meaning that they were closed), but was otherwise quite comfortable, over to Corsica. Corsica is a French island where Napoleon was born.

Some fun facts about Napoleon (they aren’t actually that fun but my Mum made me put them in)

-He was emperor of France for a decade (1804-1814)

–During the Napoleonic Wars, France conquered Egypt, Belgium, Holland, much of Italy, Austria, much of Germany, Poland and Spain. France directly conquered or controlled through alliance most of western Europe by 1812. 

But if you are anything like my brother, you’ll only care about the baguettes. We did actually visit Napoleons house and saw his bed (not strange at all), as well as having a long, informative tour of the place.

After a couple days there in Ajaccio we took a bus to Propriano; a city on the coast where, as a key point on the holiday, we picked up our boat. Despite some flaws, including rather cold cabins, it’s nice and spacious, with an entire hall separating me from my brother.

A catamaran called Taramea.

Italy’s temperatures are certainly far more agreeable to me then Ireland

Unfortunately, I still have to start this entry in the five degree temperatures of Ireland…

Where I left off, we ate some tasty food, did some scenic walks, and put some annoying siblings in the gallows

On one of the days we did a slightly perilous walk along the cliffs of Moher, a very popular walk along the Irish coast:

Afterwards, we went and saw this big church that I was admittedly less interested in than the nearby candy shop of which I bought a large candy stick that I am still eating…

Not that the church wasn’t particularly noteworthy

Fast forward to Italy, where we flew straight into Pisa because we heard it had good food…

Yeah…no

The accommodation was great; no one else liked it, mostly because it had no wifi, but it had a tennis channel so I was all set…

We saw the leaning tower of Pisa-it didn’t fall, but we still got some reasonable views, despite the excessive amount of tourists present.

The last one was a random building that would be impressive if it weren’t standing next to the tower.

Skip some gluten free pizza, a drive that would have been long had we not went on that Western Australia holiday earlier this year, and a complicated process getting in to the town, and behold, we are now in the Cinque Terre (pronounced ‘chinka terra’)

For those poor people who hadn’t heard of it (totally not me), the Cinque Terre is an internationally famous walk between five picturesque coastal Italian villages that provides many awe-spiring views and, uh, more views.

Anyway, the towns are nice, pretty good food, and nice waiters.

Although French waiters do seem to be better.

You wonder why Italians; the home of pizza and pasta, aren’t overweight, until you see what they go though every morning to get to the train before work…

That was only 2/3 of the way up too, just got blocked by a tree…