Alghero, Sardinia
Spent 6 days here in mid October 2004, flying in early one Thursday on the 6:10am Ryanair flight from Standsted getting into Alghero airport at 9:30am. We stayed a night at the Hotel San Francesco, a 2 star hotel above the cloisters of a church in the old town. It was great for the old town, but very busy and cramped, and we moved the following day to the Hotel San Marco on the Lido - just across the road from a lovely beach. The photos below are taken from that beach.
Alghero does have some wonderful sunsets, this was looking out to the Capo Caccio - the cliffs where the Nettuno Grotto are.
The Hotel San Marco, where we stayed for 4 nights. Nicely presented rooms and a great location across from the beach are the selling points here.
There's some lovely coastline just outside Alghero, around the bay of Porto Conte. This is from Capo Caccia looking across the bay.
This is the other side of the bay, looking back towards Capo Caccia. This day, we caught the bus to the Porte Conte bus, followed the forest trails to Capo Bocat, then walked back to Alghero, initally through the forest, then across some wonderful beaches at Lazzaretto and Bombarde, to Fertilla, the town still stuck in 1930's Mussolino's Italy, and finally along the pine fringed beach of Maria Pia back to the Lido and our hotel.
From the top of Capo Caccia, there are 600 stairs down to the sea and the Grotto Nettuno. We didn't bother entering the Grotto, however the view from the stairs themselves gave some incredible views.
One day trip we did was to Sassari, easily done catching a direct train. It has a wonderfully preserved old town, with it's most impressive building without doubt the the old Duomo
