Campervan Therapy

During the week we stay in Lacona we settle into a lazy routine, a morninf walk along the fine crescent of beach, paddling in the surf, to Valle-Santa Maria Campsite, and through there to the local shop with its vivid vegetables: the peppers more red than at home, the aubergines more purple and the courgettes those small, meaty ones, not overblown with water.

Each day we pass the turtle path set up on the beach. The eggs hatch at night and a channel edged with long heaped runs of sand on either side gives safe passage of the turtles to the sea.

A sign warns us not to use flashlights if we come to see them. I’m tempted to find my way by moonlight, but the children digging on the beach have been exemplary in their efforts and it’s pitted with holes big as a grave.

 We also have to stop each morning to watch the various surfers drag a ladder into the sea, stand statue still, before the right ripple hits and they balance on a strange T-bladed surf-board to bounce up and down to keep it moving, slicing above the waves as if they’re not just walking on water but dancing on it.

Afternoons see us hiking on one of the trails, Seán armed with his map App, Avenza. The trail from just beside the campsite to Capo Stella starts out shaded, under umbrella pines, with views to the Golfo Stella and the town of Capoliveri clinging to the cliffside opposite, the sailing boats idling in the bay.

We climb down the narrow track to Capo Stella and a view of Isola Corbella, through mastic shrubs and the wonderfully named scorpion broom. But best of all are the humming rosemary shrubs – with bees feasting on the purple flowers. Small butterflies flitter with wings the same colour as the rosemary flowers.

Of course, we both forget just how terrified I am of sheer drops. I’m not sure when we’ll ever learn. So, we follow what Seán innocently thinks is the lower path. It leads us to a cove of singing naturists. A woman’s singing is so musical that we’re transported into myth, the siren hypnotising us.

The trouble starts as the track climbs to hug the russet cliffside, a sheer drop into the blue sea below. I scrabble for stray mastic tree branches, crab-walking with my back to the drop. Seán guides me back to the singing siren.

Retracing our steps, we finally find the Anello di Calcio – or ‘Ring of Calcium’ – which will take us back to the track entrance. The name rings true as we pass slabs of moon-white marble, and paths of white calcium carbonate.

Our trek to Capo di Fonza is just as beautiful, Monte Tambone higher and sterner than those on the Capo di Stella. All we can hear are the stone-chat’s pebble bashing song and the Sardinian Warbler.

Our lazy afternoon ramble up to the 12^th Century Sanctuary of Santa Maria della Neve, is gentle.

The sanctuary is modest and locked but the best part of the walk is the olive-tree-lined approach to it offering up a view of the valley of the same name.

Autumn’s scarlet vines and silvered leafed groves ripple down to the blue sea.