| Our favorite pastime in Sardinia (other than eating) was going to the beach. The closest one was at San Giovanni, a small residential area just south of Posada. |
 |
The road leading from the highway down to San Giovanni. |
| A lot of the houses are vacation villas owned by people of some means in Rome or elsewhere on the mainland. |  |
 |
Christa (l.) and Angelika at the snack bar at the beach in 99. Angelika is a German lady who resides in Posada and to whom we were introduced by Giovanni. |
| The view of Posada from the snack bar at the beach. |  |
 |
One of the many salt marsh lagoons common to the northeast coast of Sardinia. These lagoons are reputed to be frequented by pink flamingos. Somehow I missed their visits.
|
| The beach and sea at San Giovanni looking south toward Santa Lucia. The mixture of azure and blue in the sea is typical around Sardinia. |  |
 |
Christa and Angelika on the sand back in 91. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
The Sardinian beaches are made even more attractive by the plethora of blooming wild flora. |
The neighbors are always friendly too. |
|
During our 1999 visit, we were invited to a San Giovanni Day party at this house in San Giovanni. The holiday celebrates the "name day" of the saint, not the town. |
 |
 |
| At left are some of the guests seated around the patio table. Massive quantities of food were served, as were countless bottles of vino. At right is a group doing their male bonding. I had to step out of the group long enough to take the picture. What's going on here is that buckets of live mussels are being dumped out on the table. The trick is to pry the mussel open, squeeze a dash of lemon on the occupant of the shell and consume it alive, all the while avoiding spilling your wine. And, no, the guy with the white shirt is not peeing. He was a Sardinian visiting home from Australia where he lived at the time. That made him the only other person speaking English. A very funny and likable guy. |
 |
 |
| At the far left is Christa at table with Giovanni (second from left). Above right picture is our friend Giovanni (l.) with his friend and our host, Giovanni.; In fact, all the men there were named Giovanni (except me) and we were celebrating San Giovanni Day in San Giovanni. This seemed to all make perfect sense at the time. |
