Alghero!

Buongiorno. Buonasera. Dove e gelati? Parle Inglese? Grazie. Arrivederci.

This extent of my knowledge of Italian was extremely helpful in Alghero [small town], Sardinia [small island], Italy.


Yikes. What a trip - sort of a comedy of errors, but with great friends so all in all a great time!

First, we make the trek from Paris to Paris-Beauvais airport, which let me tell ya, is not Paris. One 14 euro, hour-and-20 minute bus ride later, we get to the airport, which is franchement a lot more like a warehouse. The Madrid flight was cancelled, so there is a stockpile of people who are all penny-pinchers, and thus nowhere to sit due to extensive picnics and cardgames.

An hour delayed, we make it to our hostel at midnight, and settle in. The next day... I don't know, is Wednesday the Sabbath in Italy? My word, everything was closed - no one was out, it was like a ghost town! And to top it off, everything shuts down from about 12:30pm-4pm for lunch and siesta. Not so good for the tourists who roll out of bed at 10am and only have an hour or so to get anything done. Whoops.

What a fun time though, exploring the docks and the Old Town. Alghero was a fishing village actually founded by the Spanish in the 16th century, so there is a lot of lasting architecture from that original period. For example, we went into a church that had been built in 1520! Comically, what we would recognize as a seawall, the original builders believed would be an impenetrable fortress to the Barbary pirates of the day. Unfortunately, they were proven wrong.

Then we found gelati!

The running joke of the trip seemed to be the discount grocery store, EuroSpin. Classy, right? With awful produce [either rotten or rock-hard unripe], and some hilarious beauty products, we ended up limited for hostel kitchenette dinners. However, gnocchi with pesto and cheap [i mean cheap] wine + Catchphrase made for some laughable quotes.


One of the main attractions of Alghero is the Grotto [marine caves] about 15 miles away. You can get there cheaply by bus, but in the off-season there is only one bus at 9:15am that returns promptly at noon. What's more, the caves are only open Monday-Thursday, so this was our one shot to make it out. We got up early bought our bus tickets, and got ready to go... too bad we were on the wrong bus. By our estimation, if we finished the route we were on it would have been roughly two hours to Sassari, another apparently cool old town. But, c'mon - two hours?! So we decided we should ask the driver, and ultimately wait at the bus stop for the next returning bus. Even though I prefaced our limited conversation with "Parla Inglese?" he flew off in Italian, to no viable result for us. What we got was uno e dieci [don't quote me on the spelling], which we took to mean there will either be a return bus in an hour in ten minutes [which would be 11am] or we would be waiting until 1:10pm. Hm, worth a shot, right?


For an hour and ten minutes we enjoyed one stray cat, one tractor, and one bar in Tottubella. Where is Tottubella, you ask? Well, you ask the wrong girl. Surrounded by jungle and vineyards, we were officially lost in the middle of Italy. And then! Oh, and then! The bus - the exact same bus with the exact same driver - picks us up. Yes, we should have been patient and stayed on the bus to Sassari [apparently 35 minutes away, not two hours] to have at least accomplished something other than sitting on a curb with our morning.


A little disheartened, we hang out at the hostel while the rest of the siesta and head out for some gelati. Becca and Jenna went on a bike ride, and Amber and I set off on a hike. Shortly thereafter we met an Italian friend who accompanied us to no less than five closed or "no gelati till may" gelaterias. Disgruntled, we meet back up with the other girls and have to wait until 4pm to return to our one previously found gelati shop.


That night we went to dinner at Poco Loco, home of the meter-long pizza and bowling! The pizza was great, though unfortunately a group of twenty 12 year-olds stopped us from pursuing the bowling alley. We had asked a bartender at a restaurant previously where the happening bars are, and he pointed out a few on a map for us. Jazzed and full of pizza at 9:30pm on a Thursday night, we figure we will hit up the Irish pub. Not a soul was there save the bartender. Thus, another night of Catchphrase and the good ole' card game Bullshit ensued.

Friday we made it onto the correct bus and headed to Porto Conte, where there were some acclaimed ruins and beaches. After walking about 20 minutes and seeing literally no one [the tourist office was gated closed] we finally spotted some gardeners cleaning up a soccer field. After asking for directions, we find out that the ruins we are looking for are about 30 minutes away up 'that mountain'. Why not?

Ten minutes later and nowhere near 'that mountain' our gardeners pull up next to us to inform us that we are going in the wrong direction - but only a five minute drive, if we are willing to hang out in the back of a white window-less van with a lawnmower, rake and grass clippings in the back. Again, why not?


Oh, by the way, the ruins were not up any mountain, apparently they were just in the direction of said mountain.


We make it to the ruins, and they really are spectacular. in 1200 B.C. the people living there had constructed a village in the Nuraghe formation, which consisted of a large tower in the center, a meeting area, and small ten-foot in diameter huts surrounding. To imagine people having lived in these structures almost 3000 years ago is beyond me.

We hiked down the road, and onto an interesting looking path, to stumble across a sweet little meadow and then the beach of a bay of the Mediterranean Sea! I did dip my toes in, but yowza that water was cold!

Getting back to Alghero, we vowed not to even leave for dinner until 9pm, hopefully doing it the local way. We found a fabulous swanky restaurant, and determined that sea urchin is thus far the only seafood I don't like. However, it was incredibly fun to order the set course menu, where everything is brought to you in succession and includes the perfectly paired wine. Definitely a very "particular to Alghero" choice, as our waitress repeatedly mentioned to us.

Saturday was a fun time of exploring more of the town, and then traveling back to good ole' Paris, which was cold, windy and rainy upon our arrival.