In our posh campsite, there are a number of camping companies as well as the freedom campers like us, who bring all our own gear. With the camping companies, you just rock up and the tent is all set up and fully kitted out with everything you need for a luxury camping holiday, except your clothes. You can either rent a tent or a small bungalow. We've just been checking out prices and it's not cheap. Eurocamping charge 200 Euros per night for a 2 room bungalow, although with the current economic climate you can get about 400 Euros off per week if you book at the last minute – 1,400 down to 1,000 Euros for a weeks camping. The tent option is currently about 550, down from 800, so still quite pricey, although we'd pay over 300 Euros for our site for a week.
Today we went to Maddalena via ferry from Palua. Getting onto the ferry was a bit of a mission. Firstly, the ticket office closed just as we got to the front of the queue (of 2 people) because the girl was having a smoking break. Getting the hump with her, we went to another ferry operator whose ferry was just about to leave and tried to buy tickets as we got on the boat, but the guy selling the tickets was also directing the cars, so he wanted us to leave our passports with him until he could sell us the tickets. You guessed it, we weren't giving him our passports, so we got the hump with him, so we went back to smoking girl, who by now had had her smoke and was back into customer service mode.
When we got onto the ferry, we tried to climb the stairs to get to the top deck but there was a rope across the stairs, so we went to the other end of the boat and climbed the other set of stairs and then walked round the boat to sit on the seats that were on the top of the stairs with the rope over them. We then spent the next 15 minutes watching everybody climb up the stairs and over the rope to get to the area when we were sitting. When absolutely everybody who could be inconvenienced had either climbed over the rope, or gone to the other end of the boat to climb the other stairs, a member of the crew came along, untied the rope and then took it away...... WTF?
Maddalena is a beautiful town (quite a big town actually), with lots of shops and quaint little streets and piazzas. What it does lack however is a decent restaurant, as Anne and I can now confirm that we have eaten Italy's worst pizza for lunch, but that's OK, you've got to have one dud in 5 weeks of holiday.
Prior to lunch, we walked all around the town and the port area. Finding a small shop, we went in a bought a 1.5litre bottle of Fanta. While we were getting it from the fridge (now that is luxury) we noticed the big vats of wine at the back of the shop, which people obviously come in and fill their flagons with. As we drink pitcher's of wine in the restaurants most of the time, we are well used to seeing them being filled from big dispensers in the restaurants, but this was the first time we'd seen them available to the general public.
The campground has a vast array of restaurants, self-service food areas, bars etc, but they can be a bit Hi-de-hi-ish, so fortunately there is some good pizza restaurants just along the beach from the campground, so we go there each night and have a meal and then there is usually a singer, so we listened to a woman on the terrace overlooking the sea, while people danced and sat around talking, before sauntering off home about midnight for a good night's sleep before the pigeons no doubt get back onto their koo-ing again in the morning.
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