Weekend Excursion 5/24-25

This weekend, we travelled to a few areas in the southwestern section of Sardinia. On Saturday morning, we travelled to an old geomining park. We drove on winding roads past old mining towns and sites to the coast until we finally reached a beautiful area on the west coast in the mountains. The view was amazing- I'll add pictures from the whole weekend at some point tomorrow. At the old mining site, a guide took us through an old mine gallery in the side of a mountain that the miners used to transport silver, zinc, lead, and other minerals to the coast where they would be put in boats for shipping. After the mine, we went down the coast for lunch at a restaurant where we had a several-course, seafood[and wine]-based meal. After lunch we visited the ruins of an incredibly old Roman temple called "The Temple of Antas" The temple was built around 500 BC and dedicated to the god Sid Addir. I really enjoyed how quiet the area was; we appeared to be the only people there. It was very different other ruins I have visited in Greece and Mexico, where the areas are crowded with tourists. After spending some time walking around the area, we went to an agroturismo called "Sa Perda Marcada." The farm was beautiful, and the food was delicious. We spent a lot of time outside relaxing and spending time with the loving, energetic 4-year old boy Eniro (?) who lived on the farm with his equally adorable lab puppy. We had a cooking lesson on Sunday morning where we made a Sardinian gnocchetti pasta called "Malloreddus" and a traditional desert called Seadas, which was essentially a large ravioli filled with Pecorino cheese, deep fried and covered in honey- it's just as tasty as it sounds. After that, we went to the dunes on the coast to spend the rest of the day at the beach. Dylan, Sean, Mike, Neil and I hiked up a huge sand dune and got some really great pictures- pictures soon.