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!