Alghero
Catalan Speaking Walled Port On The North West Coast Of Sardinia, Taken By The Aragonese In 1353 And Repopulated From Catalonia, With A Complete Circuit Of Sea Walls · Alghero, Sardinia
Alghero is the Sardinian town where the street signs are in Catalan, because the Aragonese took it in 1353, expelled the inhabitants and repopulated it from Catalonia, and the language and the surnames never left. The old town is a compact grid of narrow lanes inside a complete circuit of sea walls that you can walk along the top of, with squat round bastion towers at the corners and the Mediterranean immediately below the parapet. It is a working fishing port rather than a resort, the boats come in on the quay below the walls, and the restaurants along the ramparts serve lobster the local way with tomato and onion. Along the coast north-west the cliffs of Capo Caccia rise vertically out of the sea, with a cave at the bottom reached by six hundred and fifty-odd steps cut down the rock face or by boat from the harbour. Red coral is fished here and the town has been working it for centuries.
Piazza Civica, Alghero, Sardinia, 07041, Italy
NO OPENING TIME HERE WAS CHECKED. The structure: the sea walls, the old town and the harbour are public and never close. The cathedral opens daily with a midday interval; the bell tower keeps shorter seasonal hours. The Grotta di Nettuno opens daily in season with the last entry well before closing, on reduced winter hours, AND CLOSES IN ROUGH WEATHER whichever way you arrive. Boat trips to it are seasonal and weather-dependent. The nuraghe and necropolis keep site hours with a weekly closure. Confirm the cave first.