Of bars and history and holidays under an Italian sun

I would like to have seen Alghero fifty or so years ago.

Now someone was selling photographs of the old town but we would have needed a small fortune to buy enough of them to get an idea of what it was like.

So as ever in such circumstances it is down to that combination of imagination matched to a bit of historical knowledge and the memories of people who lived there.

I doubt that that the bar we settled on yesterday had a long history.  I asked the waiter but he was from Naples, here for the season and he just shrugged and went back to clearing tables and putting more out for the evening trade.  Which rather put oral history in its place.

For an instant I wished I had a street directory, census return or OS map from which to tease out the age of the property and its use over time, but remembered we were on holiday, and in deference to the rest of the family decided I should confine myself to a few more pictures and order up a limoncello. And reflect that like so many of the places we had found it was hard by one of those tall narrow streets.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson