Elephant Rock, Castelsardo and Cala Rossa

In the morning we picked up our rental car and were finally mobile to explore the area.

We first drove west and made our first stop at the 'Elephant Rock'.

This rock really looks like an elephant and you don't need much imagination to see that...

Not far away is the old town of Castelsardo on a rocky spur in the sea.

We parked at the harbor and then climbed the mountain to explore the old town.

Our tour took us through small alleys that were even narrower because the restaurants had set up their tables on the streets.

We took a look at the Cattedrale Sant
Antonio Abate, which was raised to the rank of bishop's church in 1503.

Finally, we climbed up to the castle, from where we had a good view over the city and the coast.

There is also an exhibition on basket weaving in the castle, which is widespread as a craft in Sardinia.

Since we still had some time left, we decided to make a spontaneous stop at Cala Rossa.

We found an hour-long hike on komoot that would take us around the tip of a headland with reddish rocks.

The path began as a sandy path and followed the coast.

Eventually, it became more rocky and we had to do some climbing to continue our way.

But we were rewarded with beautiful views of the sea and the rock formations.

In the middle of the headland was a private property that our hiking trail led around.

Finally, we returned through a small forest and sandy paths to the parking lot.

When navigating back to the hotel, we chose the shorter route and then realized that we were being sent on unpaved roads that we had just hiked on.

The slightly uneven road with potholes ended after a few kilometers and we were able to drive back to Palau on normal (albeit curvy) roads.