Arbatax

Last weekend we surprised the kids with a little trip away. We packed up a hire car, picked them up early from school and hit the road for a two-night mini-vacation.

Driving a couple of hours up the east coast of Sardinia from its capital, Cagliari, you will find yourself in the region of Ogliastra. This area is one of the 5 “Blue Zones” (regions where residents live much healthier and longer lives than average) and is home to the world’s longest-living men.

In fact, this little corner of Italy was the first Blue Zone region ever identified thanks to a rare genetic quirk which is linked to exceptional longevity. And thanks to its geographic isolation, the genes of the residents in this area of Sardinia have remained mostly undiluted. A fact that was happily confirmed to us by our AirBnB host, as he proudly told us of his father who lived well into his 90s and enjoyed many years of good health.

And so we enjoyed our own healthy little weekend in this unique region. We filled our bellies with Italian pizza and pasta and gelato and coffee and wine. We visited the popular Rocce Rosse Bay in Arbatax and scrambled around the red cliffs that rise directly out of the turquoise waters. We soaked up the sun on the beach of Porto Frailis and even managed an unseasonably warm mid-November dip in the sea. We hiked up to the Torre di San Gemiliano, a medieval watchtower that has been perched on the headland for some 400 years. So we climbed the rusting ladders up to the top in order to take in the views and imagine what the threat of Moorish pirates might have looked like all those years ago.

And, despite two very tired and grizzly children, we spent time together even when it wasn’t easy to do. Because life is too short not to make new memories, even if you do live to be 100 years old!