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.