Island Exploring
Red Skies
David Alexander
Sat 7 Jun 2014 16:03
We then drove to Sassari, the largest town in this part of Sardinia, which also boasts a university. As we found great difficulty in parking and having a witnessed a lady dive smack into a ‘road closed’ barrier before our very eyes, we decided to move on and we headed for the hills. The scenery was stunning and, at this time of year, was very green and colourful with wild flowers everywhere. We ended up in Tempio after a tortuously twisting road up the mountain. Eventually we found a place to park and set off on foot to view the town. Whilst slaking a thirst at a street-side cafe, we overheard a guide giving some history of the town and it transpired that the attractive 14th century stone buildings were, until recently,covered in cement, which someone in the 1930s thought was an improvement! Now the town has been restored to its old look although renovations have not gone so far as to remove unsightly electric cabling, aerials or satellite dishes!
On our return to Alghero we had the challenge of getting back to the car-hirer, whose office was slap in the middle of the zone cordoned off for the rally headquarters, with roads closed all over the place and police guarding the barriers. Our car came equipped with a pass on the windscreen and this seemed to do the trick with the police, however it didn’t help us find the right side streets to get back to our starting point. Eventually, after several iterations, we made it only to discover the office shut. We parked outside and were mightily relieved when we returned an hour and a half later to find that it was still there and hadn’t been towed away.