The Town of Alghero, Sardinia
Ciao! This past weekend I ventured to Sardinia (an island off the west coast of Italy) with three of my friends in the program. Our flight left on Friday at 6:00 am! I somehow managed to drag myself out of bed at 4:00 am so as not to miss our flight. We flew Ryanair – which if anyone has flown Ryanair before knows it is kind of a joke… Within minutes of getting situated into our seats the flight attendants try to sell you anything not attached to the plane by announcing options over the loud speakers for (cigarettes, lottery tickets, alcohol, toys, flags, an assortment of overly priced food ect...) The whole time I was sitting there thinking – am I on a flight or at an auction? It was quite weird.
We landed in Sardinia at 7:15 am and took a cab to the hostel we had booked online. Upon arriving we stood outside an empty building that was in the middle of a complete overhaul and renovation – it was a disaster zone – finished with our very own boarded up windows!...gross. We called and got a hold of the woman running the Bed and Breakfast and she directed us to the new building they were using while construction was taking place, at which point the four of us let out a huge sigh of relief – no sleeping with cock roaches, thank god.
Our new hostel actually turned out to be an apartment. It was modern and furnished and we had the two bedrooms, three deck spaces to ourselves, quite lovely. The beach was only one block away, and the first stop was lounging by the ocean – that was until we realized it was only 8:00 am and still a bit chilly for the beach. We headed into the town of Alghero – which is the main (mini) city on the island of Sardinia. Alghero is absolutely beautiful! It truly has an old world charm of Italy, but located by the sea! The rest of the day was spent wandering throughout the small streets, shops and restaurants and lazily sleeping on the beach – quite the great life, so nice and easy.
The Beach!
On Saturday we got up early (surprising, I know) and took a charted boat out to the Grotto di Nettuno. The boat ride was sunning with views of all Sardinia and the mountains and cliffs that surround it. The grotto was remarkable, and we made friends with one of the tour guides who gave us good info on the history of it all (this same tour guide later tried to pick up on my friend Paris by asking her if she would like to buy a DVD of the trip, “Would you life coffee? Tea? Me on DVD? I’m expensive!”. It was nice to get out onto the water and zone out into the marvelous views while soaking up some rays.
Beautiful cliffs and views from the boat ride.
After many hours on the beach, we cleaned up and headed into town for dinner and drinks on the sea! All the locals were hypnotized by the soccer game going on – Inter Milan vs. Germany for the European Championship. We watched the game at a bar called Kings Pub (which had the best Sangria I have ever tasted!) with a few dozen other locals who were ecstatic when Inter Milan ended up winning 2-0.
Then Sunday came, and our last hours spent in Sardinia were filled with a delicious breakfast, white wine on the beach and a sad goodbye the island we all fell in love with that weekend.
Beautiful weekend, with beautiful friends.
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