The plan was to head south as far as possible today. We departed early, under the rain, as expected. Initially, we had a good back wind pushing us at 7 knots. However, as soon as we passed the Cap Ferro, at the north-east of Sardegna, it started raining like cats and dogs, the wind dropped and started veering in all directions before stabilising right in our nose. We decided to take shelter in the closest marina available, which happened to be Porto Cervo. The resident population is around 420 inhabitants, but it has a particularity: "Porto Cervo has been named one of the most expensive resorts in the world, along as being a luxury yacht magnet and billionaires' playground" as stated on Wikipedia
The Yatch Club Marina of Porto Cervo
Starting with our exploration with the marina, we soon realised that Belisama was the smallest "yacht" around. In fact, there were only very few boats in the marina, and obviously no boats hosting sailors for an overnight stopover.
The installation for the marina are of a different caliber! Look at the plug for connecting the boat to electricity:
I had never seen anything like this, and I thought I had invested in all possible connectors! The lady from the marina proposed us to get a plug (I mean the black plug unwired) for us to connect to our power line. I thought she was joking, but she was not. Then I asked for an adaptor and she came back with one, but mentioned that we would need to give a deposit of 620€, being the alleged cost of the adapter. She further indicated that the deposit had to be in cash! I thought, she was joking, but she was not! At the end, in the most exclusive marina in Italy and certainly in the top of the world, Belisama was left without electricity, which we missed to switch on our heaters to dry our clothes...
Then we enquired about food shops in the vicinity as we needed to provision for the passing to Sicily. The reply was "sorry, all food shops are temporarily closed outside of the season". But restaurant were opened, and given their number, it is clear that all inhabitants should have a relative working in a restaurant and therefore no problem to get food?
When she announced how much we should pay for one night, I though again that she was joking, but she was not: only 38€, one of the cheapest marina so far on our trip.
But shops there were in fact: Bulgari, Dior, Damiani, Lancel, Rolex, name it, all are represented here in the old village transformed in a very scenic shopping mall for billionaires.
Porto Cervo was conceived in the 1950's as an investment of Prince Aga Khan. It resulted in a new large resort called the Costa Smeralda. The price of the villas in some of the bays around may reach 300 000€ per square metre, and a night in a suite of the luxurious hotels around cost over 30 000€ a night (therefore 10 nights for a square meter!).
But one has to admit that the place looks nice, even under the rain. The gardens are very landscaped, the hotels and residence complex fully integrated in the environment, the private houses quite homogeneously styled and coloured given to the ensemble a real touch!
One of the hotel complex
Apartments around the old port
This painting below was given to the church by a baroness. It is a Mater dolorous attributed to El Greco. I should admit that I had a few questions when I looked at the hands and started counting the fingers. At first sight, it look to me like a typical artificial intelligence generated picture :-) See the Washington post issue on this...
Apologies for the bad rendering of the picture given the darkness of the place
The two leaves of the door are representing the annunciation. The angel on the left (with a star fish in his hand), and Virgin Mary on the right.
At the end of the day and a few kilometres marching around under the rain, it was a very interesting stopover, which we would probably have never visited should the clouds and the winds had not pushed us here!
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