The ferry ride to Sardinia takes 50 minutes and the views as you leave Bonifacio are stunning. Firstly, there is the dramatic cliff sided harbour entrance, then the township at top the cliffs, with some pretty amazing steps down to the rocks below and finally the white cliffs stretching off into the distance.
Boat people are fatidious about cleanliness and maintenance. We first noticed this in Saint-Florent, when every boat that arrived was washed and wiped down by the crew as soon as it arrived. I remember seeing a documentary on the Royal Yacht Britania and they made a big thing about how much work went into keeping everything clean and polished and thinking “what a fagg”, but it appears that sort of treatment is standard for all these boats and not even just the really big boats. We saw one husband and wife tie up their “little” boat (probably half a million worth) and the setting about in their speedos and bikini and spend the next hour washing it down. Now what is really, really surprising is that the ferries are at it as well. Both the Genova – Bastia and now the Bonifacio to Santa Teresa ferry got washed down while they were in port and both of them, despite appearing to be freshly painted, were getting a new coat of paint applied to some part of them.
We are now in the campground in Sardinia for our last 4 days of camping and boy have we hit the big stakes and we are now officially “Glamping”. Each excessively large toilet cubicle has a toilet, bidet and handbasin, while each exceptionally large shower cubicle also has a hand basin as well. There is not a drop of paint in any of the ablutions blocks because they are all tiled from floor to ceiling and also on the floor. There is no dust in the campground from when people drive past because paving stones don't allow dust to be created. The paving stones extend outside the campground and onto the “boardwalk” along the top of the beach. There is also a large market, a restaurant, a bar and a galiteria on site. There are also a whole range of existing facilities, so you can just rock up and stay in a chalet, a caravan or a fully fitted out tent. These are the companies like Eurocamping that provide these facilities., so it can be a bit Hi-di-hi-ish in the evenings, but after two evenings we've found that is pretty easy to avoid.
The beach itself is beautiful. You walk 5 paces into the water, which is tepid bath water warm and a beautiful turquoise blue and you are in over your head. We have an appointment there everyday at about 5pm to cool off drom a days site-seeing / relaxing or whatever it is we've been doing.
The campground is in Baia Vignole and there is a small village just along from the campground that has a couple of restautants. We went to one of these restaurants tonight for dinner, which was very nice.
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