Alghero - Day 4

Craziness followed us all the way until we left Alghero airport.  Being Monday, we chose to have a lazy morning.  Our flight didn't leave until the evening, so S decided to try to find a spa of some variety and J and I decided to mosey around and perhaps do a little shopping.

J and I started by wandering through the cathedral that was near our flat but under construction.

Cattedrale di Santa Maria from the back, the side not under construction.

It was interesting in that the sandstone parts of the cathedral were starting to erode, possibly from the constant seawater barrage around 300 feet away.  At the same time, a lot of the nice sculptures and artwork inside were still in good condition.

We have come to learn that this is a Catholic symbol for a relinquary, a place where a vessel holds a physical part of the corpse of a saint.  It's a old Catholic thing.

This was one of the more impressive altars I've seen in Europe thus far.  It was marble and silver, from what I could tell, and it was legit inlaid with marble.  Up to this point, we had only seen faux-marble inlay.

I liked the upper piece over the window.  It was sandstone, but carved thin enough that the light shone through it to give a glow-look to the heavenly scene it depicted.

We then had lunch near our flat.

Oh yeah!  "Business Lunch" style!

We still had a few hours to burn, so J wanted me to find a master-craftsman-made Sardinian blade.  Using the Lonely Planet - Sardinia book we had, I found one store that seemed to sell quality-craftsman-made blades.  I selected four blades that were not insanely priced and had a handle built out of one solid piece, not two pieces riveted or screwed together.  At a loss for how to narrow it down, I instinctively checked the balance of each blade.  Only one balanced in the middle, so I bought that one.  The sales lady immediately seemed excited, for some unknown reason.  

When I tried to asked whether it could be mailed to us, as I was trying to avoid checking a bag at the airport, she couldn't understand me and got the store owner.  The store owner spoke pretty good english and the first thing he said was, "I made that knife."  It was a funny situation.  They thought I was questioning the quality of the knife after buying it when I was actually trying to ask if they could help me ship it back to Germany at minimal cost.  I immediately asked him for his card, having accidentally now met a local knifemaker.  Sadly, they couldn't help me out in terms of shipping.  

It's a simple yet sizable blade, roughly 4 inches long.  The handle is roughly the same length.

 The balance, while not perfect, it pretty good.

 The piece joining the blade to the horn-material handle seems to be made of one piece of brass.

The handle is one solid piece with trench carved out for the blade to fold in.  In case you can't tell, I'm happy with it :)

We got back to our flat, to start packing our things when we found someone already in there.  She was cleaning.  Confused, we talked to her and she immediately got us on the phone with the flat owner.  He was confused at first, then remembered that we weren't leaving until later.  He said she was his "cousin" and she was supposed to be there the clean.  S showed up in the midst of this and we promptly gathered our bags and left.  

With still some extra time, we decided to try to avoid the expense of a taxi to the airport and bought bus tickets, 1 euro each!  Happy with our find, we waited for the bus.  All of the buses came at the exact same time, so we started asking bus drivers which bus was to the airport.  The third driver we asked pointed to the opposite side of the block we were on and said that was where the airport bus pickup was.  Why the cashier lady did not point this out was beyond us to reason, but we were again frustrated at being forced to spend extra money for a cab...this time being out an extra 3 euro.  At least we still had the cab as a backup option.

At the airport, we had to check a bag in order to bring the Sardinian knife back.  Because we did not pay for this online at Ryanair in advance, we had to pay an additional 60 euro!  

We finally got back, and went our separate ways.  

My pros and cons about our experience in Alghero:

Pros:  AWESOME food, very relaxed environment, beautiful-to-the-ear language, lots of beaches, lots of old-school architecture, a good number of local master craftsmen, lots of pets, relatively clean area, nice people

Cons:  weather didn't cooperate, price-gouging in a lot of places, very touristy, not much to do if you don't plan ahead or have your own transportation

Would I go again?  Yep.  But I would plan ahead at lot more in terms of transportation and weather.  The public transportation is decent, but not too conducive to general exploring outside of the city.  I would consider renting a car next time for the purposes of seeing more of the island.

Alghero - Day 3

Looking at the pictures for this day, I neglected to mention a really awesome part of the previous day.  We went shopping around as I was on the lookout for Sardinian knives.  Sardinia is one of the places in the Mediterranean that still has a high concentration of world-class skilled craftsmen.  The crafts are often based around shepherd tools and skills: knife-making, leather-working, and cobbling.  I was on a quest to find quality made knives.  The book we brought with us did a sufficient job explaining how to pick them out in a display-case.  What we did not anticipate was finding a master leatherworker. 

J and I wandered into a few stores looking for sandals for J and happened upon a shop where they made them custom to the person!  They had all of the leather, polishes, conditioners, stitching machines, and tools needed right behind their counter.  He had J try on a pair of sandals and upon looking from six feet away promptly said, "You have a 41 length and a 38 width foot."  They custom made a pair of sandals for J within an hour.  S also got in on the action and had special colored sandal straps put on.  Each pair of custom-made-within-an-hour sandals only cost 25 euro!  We also spotted a nice wallet on display that I promptly purchased as well for only 20 euro.

I thought it was so cool to buy wares directly from, meet, and see in action a master leatherworker.  An who could beat the price?

I searched around for available knives and found several for sale but very few fitting the descriptions in the book.  I gave up looking for a knife...until our last day :)

...

We started our third day with the game plan of wandering the miles of beach right outside of the city.  The weather was forecasted to be the nicest of our entire stay: 70 deg F, 12 mph winds, mostly sunny.  While the wind was a little cold, we did manage to sun ourselves.  We walked around 5 miles of coast from Alghero to Fertilia.

Just outside of Alghero, around six young guys were para-sailing.  Looked like a blast!

It may not look it, but that wind made it kinda cold.  There's a reason my hands were in my pockets.

Alghero from the coast.

We parked ourselves at a small stand between cities.  We soaked in some rays and sipped on some drinks while enjoying the view and the day.

Had to post this.  It's a pretty shot.

S, jamming in the wind.

Fertilia has definitely seen better days.  This building was on the same block as the town center.

Nice view of Alghero, though.

We had to wait for the bus to take us back to Alghero, so we relaxed a bit.

Once back in Alghero, we took the mini-train ride through the town. 

Bichon sighting!

Woah!  Someone's being trendy.

After our train tour, we decided to really treat ourselves to a fancy dinner.  I had a Scorpion fish catch of the day and J and S shared another lobster.  This time, they presented the lobster to us live before preparing it.  It was HUGE!  My Scorpion fish was also HUGE (I figured out later it was roughly a 5 pound fish).  The mistake we all made was that we did not check the weight of the fish and lobster before it was prepared.  We ended up with an equally HUGE bill.

Yeah, this bill cleaned us out for the night.  But the food was crazy good.  The only actual regret I had about this meal was I had the wait staff clean my fish for me.  There were plenty of bones hidden in the meat they gave me and I felt like there was less meat than if I would have taken care of it myself.  Oh well, live and learn.

It all made for a memorable day.

Alghero - Day 2

So at this point, we had confirmed that it would be too cold to simply get sunned on the beach, so we tried a backup plan of seeing the Neptune Grotto, which is a 30min ferry ride away.  We were informed by the ticket guy that if we could not get dropped off to see it, we would be returned via a longer route along the coastline.

First, we went to get breakfast...only to find that Italians don't really do breakfast.  An Italian breakfast largely consists of coffee and a croissant.  We nabbed that.  I experienced the absolute thickest hot chocolate I ever had!  It seriously had the consistency of slightly runny pudding.  It was awesome chocolate though!  We also decided to swing by a local market and got some fruit as part of breakfast.

 

Sorry for the slant of the picture, but it was a good view of all of the different fresh foods they had in their market.

 

 

We bought some strawberries, cherries, apples, and some Saturn peaches.  J had never had them before, so I was happy to introduce that glorious sweetness to her.

 



While nibbling on our fruit, we crossed the street to the neighboring section of the market...it was the meat market section!  Known for their seafood, Alghero's market had quite the variety: cow, horse, lamb, pig, lobster, octopus, cuttlefish, "normal" fish, and even a swordfish!  I made J take a picture of it.

 

 

We then went to hop aboard our ferry boat.

 

A view of Alghero's port from right next to old town.

 

 

The ferry turned out to be a bust.  On the way over, the wind and waves picked up so that it was no longer dry on the top of the boat.  It would have been fun if it wasn't so cold.  Fortunately, the main deck was encased for such an occasion.  Once we got to the Grotto, the waves were so rough that we couldn't dock.  There are 690+ stair steps from the top of the cliff to the grotto if you want to walk in.  There was at least 40 people at the bottom of the stairs waiting for the boat...our boat, which couldn't dock.  The water was also choppy enough that those who took the stairs could not get into the Grotto either.  Our ferry promptly turned around and took the long route as we said would happen in that event.  Poor S get motion sickness worse than J.  Even with Dramamine, she was not doing well.  She was such a trooper through it all.

 

We have so few pictures of this because the windows were covered in water, making pictures not turn out very well.  Here are a few examples...

 

Alghero old town from the upper deck of the ferry.

 

 

 

Once we got back, we decided to treat ourselves to a good lunch.  We went to the recommended Osteria Machiavello.  I had one of their fish while J and S shared the local popular Rock Lobster on spaghetti.  They certainly know how to make their fish in Alghero.  Every one I had tasted absolutely awesome!

Having your fish boned and skinned is optional.  This particular fish I chose to have it as it was.  This turned out to be a good choice as the next day I opted for having my fish cleaned at a different restaurant which resulted in a few hidden bones as well as what I felt was a lot less meat.  J and S loved the lobster!

That is the Mediterranean behind me as I hop off the ledge.

S had some difficulty getting into a catapult.

Jazz hands!

We resumed exploring Alghero and found something I thought was quite awesome...

Pirate...

...candy!!!

I got a sugar rush just smelling the bulk candy being sold.  I was wise and took only a three or four pieces of a selection of kinds as they sold it by weight.  A family in front of me at the register let their kids go hog-wild and had to shell out almost 50 euro for three filled bags.

This is what is left of one of the old town city gates.  J loved the Art Nouveau style.

Citizens in Alghero LOVE their dogs.  There were small dogs everywhere, many off leash, this one just sitting in the back of a moving motorcycle!  There were also a couple of stray dogs we saw later that sauntered into small businesses where the owners would feed them occasional scraps.  Even the dogs have the casual Italian flair down!

Nope, it's not garbage as I originally had thought.  There were several of these on one spot of coast.  I had to look it up online.  They are called Velella; they are a type of jellyfish. They are sometimes called the sea-raft or the little sail.  Their sail is their only means of moving, so they are prone to getting stranded on shore like the ones we found. 

The last thing we checked out was a church.  Alghero was controlled by the Catalonians for a good amount of time, so it was nice to be able to read some Spanish for the first time in a while.

Dinner this night was at a recommended pizza place.  We had to wait outside for about 20 minutes, and it was cold by the shore.  However, we got to chat with a very pleasant Irish retired couple.  We learned that there was a convention going on in town, so there were actually a lot of out-of-country people around.  We regretted later not getting their contact information.  They were a very sweet couple.  I don't remember what J and S got, but I got a half-calzone, half-regular style pizza with about half of the fixings they offered in the entire shop to include mussel, shrimp, pepperoni, and I'm certain far more that I could not even identify.  It was big, and it was good.  However, as a pizza made in Italy, it's only selling point for me was the exotic toppings.  Outside of that, it tasted like a regular European pizza.  Regrettably, we got no pictures.

The next day we decided to walk along the beach.  It was supposed to be sunny and warm enough.  We got some serious sun tans and burns!

Alghero - Day 1

Our trip to Alghero, Sardinia, Italy was my first ever to the Mediterranean.  We were looking forward to warm weather, lots of sun, and a pretty laid back vacation.  We got most of that.

This trip we brought along J's friend S from work.  S was also looking forward to a few sunny days on the beach.  S added a whole other fun dynamic to the trip.  We're so happy she came along!

Friday, the first day, was a pretty easy 2 hour flight from Frankfurt-Hahn to Alghero airport.  It was sunny, but only about 10 degrees F warmer than Germany: 60 degrees F!!!  It was also windy, making it cold enough to debate wearing shorts.

We took a cab to our rented flat.  Our cab driver was awesome!  She was a middle-aged woman who zipped around in her car shouting and swearing in Italian to whatever obstacle was in her way. 

I've decided that Italian is very pleasing to the ear, no matter what the context: anger, love, curiosity, confusion, annoyance, polite, or rude.  I don't speak Italian, but I know a good amount of Spanish.  Italian is annoyingly close to Spanish in that many of the words are identical, but enough is different such that an Italian will likely not understand you if you only speak Spanish.  More on that later.

We got to our flat 30 minutes early, called our flat renter, and he sent his "cousin" to let us in.  A different "cousin" came to let us out of our flat early, but more on that later.  The flat was quite nice: right in one of the main squares (Piazza Civica) in old town Alghero.  It had a low-ceilinged loft area for the bed, and the rest of the apartment was the kitchen/dining room/living room space with some closets and the bathroom with a shower.  S slept on the fold-out couch while J and I slept in the loft bed.  It wasn't the most comfortable, but it worked well enough.  J was struck by the heavy dose of orange decorating the flat.  We also liked the windows opening out to the Piazza from our room.  Every single morning each one of us took a turn to look out those windows.

This is S and me looking out the flat window.  Piazza Civica is right behind us.

After settling in, I wanted to hit the Tourist Information center ASAP.  I wanted a map, an update on the weather, and any other local touristy information I could get.  Since it was cold, we were likely going to need alternate plans.  I thought it was amusing that when we got there, they were helping Germans and were speaking German.  The same people helped us in English when we got to the counter.  Being multi-lingual definitely makes one employable.

We then decided to wander along the beaches nearby.  Alghero is right on the coast, right outside of where we were was the city port, and immediately north of that was miles of public and private beaches.  It was very picturesque, but definitely cold enough that no one was in their bathing suits.  We decided to barefoot it just to see how cold it was...it was the kind of cold that reminded me of the Pacific Ocean at the same time of year: cold enough to make you numb after about 5 minutes or so.  The beaches were nice, though.  The sand was a fine off-white.  There was TONS of plant matter washed ashore the ungroomed beaches.  It made a kind of foot-deep mulch in some places.  There were also a bunch of plant fiber balls everywhere.  It was a little bizarre to behold.

 

 

 

Fiber balls!

 

S is enjoying the brief amount of sun that day whilst I try to figure out what adventures are available for tourists like us.

 

We then decided to peruse Alghero old town, a walled city mostly built from the Catalonian era when Spain had control of the island.

 

 

This is the westernmost pier from the walled city.

 

 



 

 

We treated ourselves at dinner to a standard Italian multi-course meal.  You order an appetizer, a bottle of wine, a first course which is typically a pasta (Primero), a second course which is typically a meat (Secondo), and then a dessert.  We ate at a restaurant that I unfortunately can still see in my mind but cannot remember the name.  Rummaging through my Sardinia book, I think it may have been the Refettorio.  I remember the entrance appearing to be into a dark alley only to open into a high-ceiling and very nice restaurant.  The service was good, and the food was fantastic (a common theme in Italy).  The three of us chatted and leisurely ate and drank over the course of a couple hours. 

A curious culture thing: every restaurant where we ordered a bottle of wine, the server had me taste-test the wine.  It didn't matter who ordered it, nor the fact that I might have ordered a different drink for myself.  The three of us decided it was simply because I was a man, even though I drank the least of the three of us.  It was an experience for me as truly no two bottles of wine (even if the same maker and vintage) tasted the same.

With that, we all went to bed.  We decided to try to see the Neptune Grotto the next day.  That turned out to be an adventure in and of itself.