Alghero – a secret blend
Like the fish named after it, Sardinia is slippery and elusive - difficult to catch hold of and pin down. Even DH Lawrence gave up trying to understand the place, deciding it was ‘lost between Europe and Africa and belonging to nowhere.’
Positioned in the centre of the western Mediterranean, Sardinia has evolved a perplexing mixed identity. Mysterious native civilizations met with wave upon wave of plundering invaders, and would-be governors from Lebanon, Tunisia, Spain, and Italy. Add to this jumble of influences the naturally reserved and insular temperament common to islanders everywhere, and it’s little wonder the Sardinians have remained a bit of an enigma to the outside world.
Curious visitors only started finding their way here in the 1960s. The earliest holidaymakers arrived in what is still the island’s most attractive and most visited settlement: Alghero, on the northwest coast.
Situated on a rocky headland, surrounded by stout medieval walls punctuated with bastion towers, Alghero looks from afar like the setting for an exotic fairy tale. Renaissance domes and Venetian bell towers climb above Moorish and Gothic windows set into buildings painted pale pink and yellow. Inside, the centro storico is an entrancing puzzle of tiny lanes - by day an atmospheric place to wander quietly, at night teeming with an entire population enjoying their passeggiata.
A Pocket of Exoticism
While the highly exclusive Costa Smeralda resorts on the other side of the island can seem like a Disney version of the Mediterranean, Alghero is refreshingly uncontrived. An ancient settlement with a thriving fishing port easily capable of sustaining the local economy if all the tourists disappeared, Alghero has genuine character. In fact, in true Sardinian style, it has a multiple personality. The flavours here are of Spanish Catalonia and mainland Italy - making Alghero a pocket of exoticism even within Sardinia.
Archaeological finds suggest indigenous civilizations were in the area from about 6000BC, but Alghero’s last thousand years have been entirely determined by outsiders. The Genoans got here first, creating a fortressed stronghold in the 12th century from which to protect their dominance of the Mediterranean. But when a large Spanish fleet sailed ominously into Alghero’s waters in 1353 and picked a fight, the devastating sea battle that followed moved Alghero into Catalan hands - for 400 years.
Re-christening the town ‘Barcelonetta’, King Pedro IV of Aragon threw the Algherese out of their homes and replaced them with loyal Catalan families. Ethnic Sardinians became second-class citizens. Only a limited number were allowed to enter the town at any one time, and they were obliged to leave when a trumpet signalled. Alghero flourished as an outpost of Catalonia until the 1718 Treaty of London gave all of Sardinia to the Piedmontese, beginning a slow process of Italianization.
