Europe's hidden treasure

Alghero, Sardinia

Alghero Bay

one of the views from our balcony

By starting off my blog with pictures I assume you all are crawling in envy. That is right, I spent my weekend (november 7-10) on the white sand beaches of a Mediterranean island off the coast of Italy called Sardinia. We stayed in a city called Alghero and it was an amazing escape from the cold and damp of Ireland!

My friend Natasha and I headed for the airport on Friday and as we sat there waiting for our flight to board we started talking about how much of an adventure this would be. The only words either of us knew in Italian were Buongiorno and ciao. Which both mean about the same thing. The woman at the front desk announced our flight and we realized we didn't even know the name of the place we were going. (we had been pronouncing it al-jero when it is actually al-g-air-o) This was a good sign to say the least considering Alghero just recently started getting tourists (after becoming one of the cheap flights through ryan air) and therefore we read that most people don't speak English there.

We got to Alghero around 8:30 pm and got a cab to our hotel. Right when we got in to the cab he took off at a crazy speed. I think he passed just about everyone on the road and Natasha leaned over and commented about the fact that Italians are known for being crazy drivers. About 5-10 minutes into our ride, about the time we got in to the city center, a bike pulled out in our lane. Luckily, the driver was able to slam on our breaks and the biker was spared (this time). About 2 seconds later a car slammed in to the back of our cab. Natasha and I looked at each other with disbelief (or maybe belief considering how everyone had been driving) and the cab pulled over to the side of the road. Pausing the meter and stepping out with, "one moment" we couldn't help but laugh and ask if this was really happening. The cab driver looked at the back of the car and I guess asked the guy who hit us to follow him and we were off again in a matter of probably 30 seconds. Don't worry though because as soon as he sat back down he started the meter again and 26 euro later we were at our bed and breakfast. I know right...The guy couldn't even give us a discount? Maybe for potential neck pains or something?

We were dropped off at this unlit apartment building and I looked over at Natasha like "what? are we sure this is it?" She is the one who did the booking and she was confident we were there and had directions on how to get in and get up to the B&B. After paging up, a short Italian man named Antonio came down to greet us. The B&B was absolutely adorable. It was in his family's apartment on the 6th floor, he lived there with his wife and young daughter and then there were three rooms that he rented out. For around 20 euros a night Natasha and I got the penthouse suite! We were led through French doors into a foyer with a small table and chairs that led out to our personal balcony looking over the city and the Mediterranean (also with a table and chairs). Inside to the right was an adorable bathroom with beautiful blue printed tiles covering the walls and even included our very own bidet. Our room was decorated Ikea style and we had our own little fridge with yogurt, milk, orange juice, cookies, break and jelly and pastries for our breakfast for the next few days. It was truly amazing and Antonio was very helpful throughout the week!

We decided to go for a walk around the city and on our way we stopped by a take-out pizza place. We got a good size (we were able to share) pizza with spinach and asparagus on it and two beers for 8 euro! We couldn't even believe how cheap it all was compared to Ireland. The pizza was incredible and maybe the best part were the delivery boys. irishmen shirishmen. By the end of the weekend we were nearly convinced that either good looks were required to live on the island or all ugly people were 'done away with.' If the people are anything like the mob Italians I would say the 'uglies' are done away with. Another requirement for life in Alghero was a black leather jacket and a cigarette in your hand 80% of the time. Wearing colors was a dead give away you weren't a local.

The next day (after breakfast on our balcony, as became routine) we spent all day wondering around the city. It is not very big but we were so enamored with the 'italianess' of the city and the amazing views we couldn't get enough.

Sunday we wanted to go to Neptune's Grotto, which are caves near the city but we misread the pamphlet given to us at the tourist information center and missed the only bus that went out there at 9:15 am. Luckily it was another beautiful day and we spent the whole day on the beach instead. We went to buy our tickets for the bus to go to the caves on monday (our last day) and the lady at the desk seemed unimpressed and just shook her head and said "strike." We kind of looked at each other like what? does that mean the same thing in english? what do you mean a strike? We found out the buses were going on strike on monday so there would be no way for us to get to the caves without renting a car. awesome. After a lot of contemplation (and calling around for prices and stuff) we decided against renting a car. It seriously took us about a day to come to this decision though. I would normally be all up for the guaranteed adventure however, our almost humiliating lack of direction, inability to speak the same language as just about everyone on the island and the fact that we had already been involved in a car accident was enough to convince my love of adventure to chill out.


Our flight didn't leave until 8:15 monday night so we had all day to play around which was nice. It was probably 75 degrees that day and absolutely beautiful! We rented bikes and decided to ride up the coast. Along the way we came to the pine tree forest and I saw that there was sand up through the trees so we got off our bikes to walk up to see what was through the other side. The view was incredible. We walked up a dune and there on the other side was a white sand beach of the Mediterranean. We stayed there for a while and then headed back up the coast. The other side from the city center was a little town called Fertillia. It was really cute but almost eerily quite. It felt like it was almost abandoned. The only thing that told us otherwise was a small cafe/bar that was open where we stopped for lunch. After biking back to the city center we stopped by a cafe overlooking the bay, ordered a bottle of wine and some chocolate cake and sat around for about two hours listening to Michael Jackson, disco and other great gems of American music. It was an amazing way to end our trip as you can imagine!


The cultural differences between Italy and Ireland are immense. During the middle of the day (maybe around 1) most/all of the businesses take a break until around 4. Restaurants break from around 3 or 4 until about 7:30 pm. If you wanted to eat dinner before 7:30 too bad (unless you wanted to settle for mcdonalds). If you weren't going to settle for Micky-Ds you had to find another way to waste time--the best way we found was to go for a coffee/drink and dessert. It was so strange to be thrown in to this late culture when we were used to American and Irish culture (which run on just about the same time schedule).

I don't think I can say enough how much I encourage you all to go to Alghero if you are ever in Europe. It was so nice to feel like we were two of the only tourists there and be completely surrounded by locals and Sardinian culture. I really hope that someday I will be able to go back and maybe there wont be a bus strike and I can visit the caves...or maybe my sense of adventure will be able to overrule my buzz kill cautiousness and I will be brave enough to rent a car. Either way, there is more I want to see and so I gotta go back.


>

Sláinte!