I AM standing between a ditch and a barbed-wire fence watching an enormous man called Giovanni run off with my son. “Come,” Giovanni is booming into his ear. “Come and see Hugo!” He pronounces it “Oogo”.
Hugo, I gather from the direction in which Giovanni is heading, my first-born slung over his arm, is a donkey. The expression on my son’s face is one of stunned surprise. We have been in Sardinia about 15 minutes.
In Sardinia, it seems, you must expect the unexpected. It is a place where some roads will convince you that you are in Africa, while others appear to have been borrowed from California. The coastline seems to be a hybrid of the Maldives and the Outer Hebrides. Locals are astonishingly hospitable and could very well address you in Catalan or a derivative of German.
D. H. Lawrence, who visited Sardinia in the 1920s, described it as “lost between Europe and Africa, and belonging to nowhere”. The same sensation persists today. Politically it is part of Italy, but only just, and often reluctantly.
Over lunch with Pasquale, the owner of our agriturismo, and about 15 members of his immediate family, I ask him if he feels Italian or Sardinian. He pulls a face as if he’s been struck by sudden toothache. “Have you got a different question?” he says, then admits: “Sardinian first and always; Catalonian sometimes.”
At this point, my husband injects: “What about during the World Cup?” Pasquale laughs and leans back in his chair. “The World Cup is different. For one month every four years, I am Italian.”
The eyes of two football devotees have met across a crowded table. A long and tedious conversation ensues.
The lunch itself — which comprises no fewer than nine courses — carries the same ambiguity as its host. While the length, language, atmosphere and conviviality of it are Italian, the food is uniquely and proudly Sardinian.
We eat pecorino sardo, then maccarones furriaos, which are snaking strips of pasta smothered with melted cheese. There follows a succession of astonishingly opulent carnivorous dishes — suckling pig, roast kid, myrtle-stuffed wild boar — as well as some made from parts of animals I’d never considered edible.
Granelle turns out to be sliced calf testicles; tataliu is grilled and skewered intestines. As a vegetarian, I can’t report on these but I was assured, slightly pityingly, of their deliciousness.
Later I put the Italian- Sardinian question to the tour rep, Domenico. He is disparaging on the subject of Italians. He says he is proud of the island’s isolation, of its strong individuality, of its lack of tourist crowds. “But in August,” he says, “the Italians come. He makes a rude gesture and then puts on a haughty face, “in their stupid enormous cars like they are in Texas.” He mimes a fat person gripping a huge steering wheel.
If the Sardinians are a little hostile towards their neighbours, there is a good historical reason. For thousands of years, every passing power — from the Phoenicians to the Arabs, the Carthaginians to the Romans, the Vandals to the Byzantines — dropped by for a quick invasion to see what they could find. Sardinia was seen as the doormat of the Mediterranean, something to wipe your feet on before setting off for richer pickings elsewhere.
Quite aside from the dangers presented by repeated invasion, malaria was until recently endemic on the island. In the 1940s, 60 per cent of Sardinians suffered. In short, Sardinia has never been a lucky place. Even today, it is one of the poorest regions of Italy, with one in five Sardinians unemployed.
My agriturismo is near the town of Alghero, said to be one of the island’s most attractive. It turns out to have acres of nondescript concrete housing and a vast marina, filled with rows of clinking yachts and people in silly sailing outfits. It has a pretty, medieval walled town on a promontory, which is pleasant enough, but it somehow lacks the charm of similar places in Sicily or on the mainland.
This proves to be a pattern that is repeated throughout my ten days in Sardinia. The landscape is wild and beautiful, the coastline exquisite, the ancient remains intriguing, but the towns are always a little disappointing.
As a result, Sardinia provides an experience that is like a photographic negative of an Italian holiday, where the coastline is often nondescript, the countryside inhospitable or impenetrable, but where every town you stop in, even if it’s barely on the map or in the guidebook, is likely to be beautiful.
The drive from Alghero to Bosa, along the north-western coast, is breathtaking, reminiscent of Route 1 between San Francisco and Los Angeles. The road twists and undulates above a rocky shore, with high peaks to your left, a tumbling drop on your right, and stretched ahead of you is the endless, puckered sea.
Heading inland we begin to climb the Monti del Gennargentu, a towering mountain range that dominates the interior, the inhabitants of which were said to be so fierce that even the Romans failed to subdue them. This rocky, sparsely populated region has jagged, vertiginous peaks rising to almost 2,000m.
For a hiker in search of an interesting challenge, Sardinia’s interior could keep you happy for weeks. Hiking, however, is not a pastime beloved of my three-year-old son, so we drive up and over the spine of Sardinia and on to the east coast to end our trip with three days in a hotel.
The term they use in the travel guides for this side of the island is “developed”, as if strips of modern hotels fronting on to busy beaches is somehow a natural progression. It’s an odd juxtaposition — the wild, ragged rocks paired with glass-walled resorts which, out of season, are locked and shuttered.
As we drive up the east coast, passing from resort to resort, it becomes finally clear to me that everything Pasquale said was right. Sardinia really is not Italy and never will be. In many ways, it is the opposite of Italy. To come to Sardinia in the hope of finding Italy-on-sea is a mistake, perhaps my mistake. Sardinia is stubbornly, gloriously itself, and if you want Italy, you should go to Italy. Bear in mind you might not get an unexpected donkey ride there, though.
Need to know
Maggie O’Farrell and family travelled with Just Sardinia (01202 484858, www.justsardinia.co.uk).
A Casa delle Palme two-bedroom, self-catering apartment with shared pool at the Monte Sixeri Farm Residence costs from £589 for a week.
The price includes airport transfers from Alghero airport, resort rep services, linen and welcome pack.
Car hire for one week is from £208. Three nights’ B&B in a sea-view suite at Hotel Costa Dorada in Cala Gonone is from £446 for two adults and a child sharing.
Getting there: Ryanair (www.ryanair.com) flies from Stansted to Alghero from £15.99 one-way (£25.99 return). EasyJet (www.easyjet.com) has one-way fares from Gatwick to Olbia from £22.99 (£40.98 return).
