Of fishing boats, fields and hotels

I suppose there must have been a time when there were far more fishing boats in the harbour than today. 

I counted a few along the landing stages and there might have been more out at sea but I never saw them.  For the rest it was a mix of pleasure craft ranging from sleek sailing yachts to big powered boats.

But then according to the guide books Alghero had always been a trading port and in its time would have seen the ships of Genoa Catalonia and a host of other Mediterraen.

And I guess there would have been a mix of different languages spoken in ad around the harbour, so in that respect little has changed.

In the summer months the predominate language would be Italian, with a sprinkling of English, French and languages from half a dozen other northern European countries.
In the winter, with all of the tourists gone it would be easier to pick out the sound of Catalan or at least a version which has evolved over the 800 years since the first settlers from Catalonia arrived and displaced the original inhabitants.

My fishing boats look strangely out of place very much an anachronism in the Alghero of today.  But there are still a few vestiges of that older time.  Amongst the fine new apartments and hotels to the east of the beach are a few open patches of land and they are still being cultivated.  There is also what I take to be an old stone barn which has been given a coat of cement.  Its use has changed over time and it seems to have become a store house and perhaps even a factory of sorts.

And now it stands neglected and I wonder how long it will be before it and the surrounding land falls to an enterprising man of capital who sees the potential for another hotel.
But I might just be wrong for much of this land to the east of the coat was marsh and was only drained during the Fascist era.

Still judging by the holiday apartments and hotels dating from the 1970s it might well be deemed ancient enough.

Of course the fort and the churches are old and I suspect must in places date back to the 11th century.  In time the place was entirely enclosed by tall walls of which only the eastern side looks out on land.  And that helps explain those narrow streets with their tall buildings.  Given the limit on space the only answer is to build high ad close together.  But those are stories for another time.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson