Alghero is a delightful small town with a wonderful old walled city with super reasonably priced restaurants and stores.

The ancient town center has maintained its original urban and architectural features. There are elegant bell towers, churches and palaces in Catalan Gothic style which date back to the 15^th and 16^th centuries. Meanwhile the more modern town and marina have grown up around it’s walls. This large bay is known as the “Coral Riviera”. There are many bays and inlets with impressive cliffs alternating with beaches of pure white sand around here.
Alghero is what we like to call “an honest town” it has no pretentions. It doesn’t need any – it is steeped in history and is a family resort.
Nearby, at Cape Caccia there are huge grottos where Karstic formations have made the walls of the grottos take on a beautiful pink colour.  Tour boats can take you there or you can go by road and climb down the 260 steps to see the caves!

It might be Easter weekend.
The town might be busy with the influx of excited families taking their first break of spring - but it is very cold, windy and wet. There is not the slightest chance of sitting outside amongst the myriad of restaurants without wearing all your Canadian winter woolies!

We saw a wonderful procession of priests and locals carrying the body of Christ from one church to the cathedral in Alghero which really reminds you of the importance of the Catholic church in these parts.
The old town has a great atmosphere, lots of cobbled walkways interesting small shops and lots of restaurants. The locals were all very friendly and we had some great pasta, pizza and fish.  We love going to the ubiquitous markets in these parts. Alghero has it’s own busy fish, meat, vegetable and fruit markets – but, there was no supermarket to be seen within walking distance!

The storm came Sunday so we pretty much had to stay on the boat most of Sunday and all of Easter Monday. Unfortunately the weather was awful for quite a few days. We had huge winds of 35 knots, rain and cold. The marina staff helped us put another anchor line to the front of the boat – just to be certain. This change in weather meant there was no point in hiring a car. That was a shame as we wanted to see more of this area but it was just grey, wet, cold and miserable. The wind finally died down on Thursday so John took the gas spring off and rigged a temporary boom vang.

It was time for us to move on around northern Sardinia.  The ‘Straits of Bonifacio’ lying between Corsica and Sardinia are notorious for funneling any winds with a west or east in them making very choppy seas and strong currents. The area is also strewn with partly hidden rocks and passages. Timing the weather window was quite important.

Finally, the weather was good for us to leave on Friday. Our next port of call was planned to be “Bonifacio” in Corsica. We emailed the port of Bonifacio to reserve a mooring but have had no reply by email   ..no one is answering the phone either.

I hate this! .. coming from a service based industry myself!