End of Week 4 – Sunday July 25 – Porto Cervo

Sadly / happily, camping is over for this holiday. Sadly, because we've really enjoyed the camping and it's made the times that we've stayed in hotels seem really special. Happily because our last 5 days of the holiday will be in hotels in Sardinia and just out of Rome.

We've been sweeping the outside of the tent everyday for the last few days to get all the bugs, pine needles and dust of it, so that it's very clean when we bring it back into New Zealand. This morning we were up at 7am to do our final washing for the holiday, before packing up the tent for the final time. We did the best job yet and it's all very neatly folded away and we're very expert at it now, so if customs want to see it when we come back, we can errect it and dismantle it very quickly. We threw away the ground sheet and the airbed and gave our table and two chairs to the family beside us, who didn't have any and they seemed very appreciative for the extra equipment.

There were naturally enough a few formalities to complete before we were allowed to leave the campground, but once they were done, we were on the road to Porto Cervo and two days in a 21 room hotel. I've put some photos of it up, and it really is lovely. We are on the ground floor, with direct access to the pool, which we are spending quite a lot of time beside.

We had lunch at the Porto Cervo Marina, which was totally dead. This is where all the rich and famous hang out (Paris was night clubbing here last week) and what shops there are are very upmarket, but what is rich one year, is not so much another year, and this is obviously one of those not-so-rich years. After 4 weeks of pasta, pizza and seafood, the offer of club sandwich and cheese burger and chips from the Lord Nelson Pub was to good to turn down. There were some big boats in the marina, but the one that caught my eye was the Rigid Hull Inflatable with 3 x 350 HP outboards on the back of it. That's over 1,000HP – quick, you bet!

For dinner we walked to Trattoria Caprese and had a stunning meal with a whole fresh fish to accompany my spagghetti, tomatoes, parsley, garlic etc. etc. It was quite an expensive option (but I didn't figure that till it arrived), but the staff obviously appreciated it because they gave us a bottle of Limoncello and Meloncello each to finish the meal and ourselves off.