Crosposted from !camping@sh.itjust.works.
When I was about to break down my tent, six white Sardinian shepherd dogs showed up. Beautiful medium sized dogs. They were barking a bit, kept a bit of distance, eventually figured I was alright, then left. Guess they had work to do.
I left camp and cycled along this dirt track, which seemed to be a real promising panoramic path to go, when I ran into the group again. The sheep were right at the track and the dogs blocked my way. I stood there for a bit, tried what happened if I pushed my bike a bit more towards them, but they did not seem to like that whatsoever. Bummer. Well at least they left me alone through the night, i heard the sheep's bells and dog's barks all around me when i got here yesterday and was a bit worried they'd bark me out of the spot in the night.
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Anyway, i did not want to test how far they would go and decided to turn around and take a different route along some asphalt road, which was also real nice, nobody around but some cows, sheep and cork trees.
So wild camping is feasible? I believe it's mostly neglected farmland over there - no problems with farmers?
I have only wild camped here twice yet, but yeah, I don't see a problem for the coming days. There seem to also be a lot of agriturismo places in the mountains, I guess farms where you can camp and probably get some food, also not opposed to use those. But I like wild camping too.
Keep posting! Especially about any agriturismo experience, that would be really interesting to hear.
Yeah I can post something when I'm done with the trip.
Now I have looked up agriturismo on Google maps, and most of them do not mention camping but they have rooms, even a pool, I am a bit surprised to see this now because i have passed "quite some" of them, they seemed to be littered all over the no-mans-inland and they all seemed camping ready and much more simple from the outside than what I see on google, some had a camping sign on them too. They were also all not listed in osm, not as a camp site at least.
I think they would expect you to eat there if you stay there, but I don't know if that is true.
I'm sure I will end up on one or the other, but not so sure if my sample size will be a good measure by the end of the trip.
Well I for one will be interested to hear how it went. I'm planning a bike trip later this summer and accommodation is (naturally) the big question mark. I hate camping so that's out. But proper hotels are basically unaffordable in much of Europe. AirBnb (ugh) is hit and miss. Hostels tend to have great locations but they're few and far between and becoming pretty poor value too, in my experience (crummy bunk bed in dorm for 2/3 the price of a private ensuite etc). So I'm always interested to hear in whatever other options exist.
Yeah hostels ain't it no more. Saw some cheap b&b options here, the one where I stayed at was also b&b. 35 / 40 €.
Only passed one agriturismo looking place yesterday, but I was mostly completely alone on these gravel tracks would not make sense to open a business along those tracks, haha. Very lonely, nobody around, no farmers or farms either. But a lot of animals. Pigs, donkeys, cows, goats, sheep and horses. That was amazing. Never seen free roaming pigs like that, and in this landscape it was really cool to see. And all the animals had kids.
Intriguing stuff! And surprisingly affordable. I guess I should have got away from the expensive north coast (lined with billionaire villas apparently) before judging.
Post more whenever you like! I'm genuinely interested but also it might help encourage others and so (with time!) bring this community to life.