Alghero

After a couple of nights anchored in Cala des Bollos in the Porto Conte bay, about which I’ll explain more in my next blog, we moved to Alghero on Sunday 25 May.

Alghero is an old walled town founded in the 12^th century by the Doria family. They were overthrown by Pedro IV of Aragon in 1354 and, as a result of the subsequent Spanish influence, the town now has a strong Catalan feel to it. We were expecting it to be very picturesque and were looking forward to exploring the narrow cobbled streets as we moored up right next to the city walls in the transit berth.

We retired to a café on the city walls overlooking BV’s mooring to enjoy coffee whilst we hooked up to the internet. As excited as we were about exploring the town it was, however, Sunday, and, following our recent Sunday BBQ experience in Addaya, Sunday is now associated with that unusual phenomenon, rain. It did indeed start to rain so we stayed at the café for some beers, and then some lunch, hoping for the rain to pass. It did not, so we retrieved our waterproof jackets from BV and spent what was left of the afternoon finding a source of Camping Gaz bottle refills and some food shops so that we could victual BV in the morning.

The rain did eventually stop and we had a short explore ashore before enjoying dinner in the cockpit and a pleasant evening in a very still harbour.

The weather on Monday was much more satisfactory. We got up early and cantered around the shops and the old market place getting what we needed before taking a proper look around the town and having a walk around the old defensive walls.

The 16^th century cathedral’s octagonal dome is particularly impressive with wonderfully colourful roof tiling.

Monday was absolutely calm and there was no urgency to leave before Tuesday when brisk winds were forecast, which would speed us on our way northwards. Perhaps a little late, we read in the guidebook about Neptune’s Grotto where all of the tripper boats were taking tourists. It is very close to Cala des Bollos where we had been anchored. Feeling that we had seen what we wanted to of Alghero’s old town, we motored back to Cala des Bollos to spend the afternoon walking to Neptune’s Grotto and swimming.