Of tall narrow streets full of washing and hidden stories

We didn’t cut much stir yesterday when Simone and I had another adventure in the old town.

It had meant to be more photographs and a bit of catching up time.  We see each other perhaps twice a year.  Simone and Rosa leave in Varese and us in Manchester, so we only see each other when Tina and I go home to see her parents.

And like all good adventures it started off well.  We walked along the promenade which connects the new resort with the old town, encountered a few beach traders who had set up early to catch the afternoon trade and arrived at the fort and harbour just as the mid rush in the restaurants had come to an end.

A few dinners hung on despite the fact that around them the tables were being laid for the evening and you could see the staff willing these dawdlers to move on.  Many of the tourist shops had closed till the evening and only a handful of people were in the main piazza.

All of which suited us well, because we were in search of those tall narrow streets which promised something interesting.  Nothing quite prepares you for theses hidden places just off the main piazza.  I guess few tourists venture this way unless they are lost or have paid their money and are being driven around the old town in the pony and trap.  Its driver looked bored as he negotiated these dark places and I wonder whether it was him or the pony which knew when to stop to allow the tourists to take one more picture of one more little church which was perfectly timed to fit with the commentary from the guide book.

And we found lots.  Like the little old woman sitting on a rickety chair beside an equally unstable table preparing vegetables, or the tiny shop which sold absolutely everything except those expensive coral bracelets and porcelain figures of Saint Elmo.

Once you are in these streets you could be at almost any time in the last few hundred years of Alghero’s history.  Well that is providing you chose to ignore the beaten up and very old looking cars some of which would not have looked out of place in a 1950s parade of vintage popular Italian cars.  And then all of a sudden with little warning the streets give out on the sea.  Here facing out are the walls of the old town with the remnants of the old fortifications.

The guide book says the old town was much knocked about by the allied bombing in 1943 but today there is little evideece  of it, instead there are freshly painted houses and some very interesting people but that is for another day.

Pictures;from the collection of Andrew Simpson