An adventure away from the beaches of Aleghro part one

Yesterday we hired a car and did some serious exploring.  For most of the family it was about looking for those little deserted beaches well away from the big resorts.

But for me it was just about seeing the countryside.  You can get lost in the bubble of a beach holiday.  It is that daily routine of beach in the morning, followed by lunch in the apartment, a return to the water in the afternoon and regular forays out into the old town.  Don’t get me wrong this is what I signed up for and after more than our fair share of rain and dismal Manchester weather this is a tonic.

And yet with an open road ahead and only a vague plan of where to go you inevitably drawn to places you would not normally see.  For me it is the fields and the farms as well as the small hamlets we pass through
that really fascinate me.

It looks from my uneducated eye that the harvest is in and we see no one in the fields, but then with the temperature climbing to 35° I am not surprised.  It is of course so different from what you can see at home.

Here in the north west tip of the island, the land rises and falls and twists and some of the farming plots are not much more than pockets while in other places they stretch out into the distance, broken by just a few trees and bushes.

Now farming is pretty hard in most places but I wonder just how much more effort has to be put into bringing in the crops here.  But then we are seeing it at its driest which as my mother used to say about the family home at the end of the summer holidays was perhaps not the best time to make judgements about her house keeping.

We see plenty of cows and I read that the island had the largest number of herds in Italy and they vie with goat and sheep rearing.  All of which is concentrated on milk and cheese making like the Pecorino Sardo and the Pecorino Romano which we have happily eaten through our stay.

We also passed those little hamlets that most of the time you wheeze past, as the taxi or coach hurries from the airport to drop jet tired holiday makers in one of a number of resorts.
In our case we had taken the bus from Alghero airport into the heart of the town for a € each which was a nice way to get to know the place.  But then we had booked the holiday and the flying times to suit us so we had none of those graveyard flights which deposited us at some unearthly hour before even the first bus service left the garage.

But I digress.  We passed and stopped at some interesting little hamlets, each with a small church, bar, shop and often a big work a day building belonging to the local agricultural co-operative.  They were quiet enough with few people stirring but it was a Saturday and most were in doors keeping cool.

The key to the success of any such adventure is to know where you want to go, be prepared with lots of things to eat and drink and above all set off early.  All of which allowed us to arrive an almost deserted cove just thirty minutes or so after leaving Alghero.  It was a wonderful spot.  The sea was crystal clear, the beach almost empty and there were fine views.

I doubt that we could have found a better place to explore.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson