Alghero

Introduction

Alghero is a small city of about 44,000 inhabitants in the province of Sassari. Located in the northwest of the island of Sardinia, it's a good base for exploring this part of the island, but the city has something to offer itself as well. It has medieval centre with cobbled lanes, bustling squares and beautiful city walls. A small part of the population still speaks Catalan, a Spanish dialect.

The city of Alghero was originally founded by Catalans, however some proves of Ozieri and Phoenician culture, occupying the area before, were found as well. Today Alghero is one of the most popular tourist attractions on Sardinia.

Thousands visitors come every year to admire the remains of the old citadel and enjoy Spanish feel of this Italian city, or to take one of many tour boat rides. It's great place for souvenir shopping and tasting Sardinian kitchen. There are also some very nice beaches in the area to spend a day in the sun.

Sights and Activities

• Palazzo Carcassona
• Alghero Cathedral - Also known as Cattedrale di Santa Maria started during the late 16th century, but not finished before 1730. Originally planned to be in Catalan-Gothic style, but due to changing architectural styles You can also see some Renneisance features.
• The church of St. Francis - dating back to 1360, but rebuilt during the 16th century.
• The church of St. Michael
• The Madonna del Santo Rosario
• The Torre del Portal
• The Tower dell'Esperò Reial (16th century).
• Palazzo D'Albis - an example of Catalan-Aragonese architecture of the 16th century.
• Neptune's Grotto
• Porto Conte
• Capo Caccia

Weather

Alghero has a great climate with warm, dry and sunny summers from late May to early October. Temperatures are usually around 30 °C Celsius during the day and around 20 °C at night though occasionally temperatures can hit 40 °C degrees as well. The wintermonths last from December to February when temperatures are around 10 °C to 14 °C during the day and chilly nights. This is also the time when most of the rain falls, though months without a single drop of rain are even possible during winter.

Getting There

By Plane

Fertilia Airport near Alghero has a growing number of flights serving the city and island of Sardinia. It's especially popular with budget airlines. For example, Ryanair flies to Alghero from Ancona, Bari, Billund, Bremen, Brescia, Brussels, Dublin, Eindhoven, Genoa, Girona, Graz, Frankfurt, Liverpool, London, Lübeck, Madrid, Milan-Bergamo, Oslo, Paris, Parma, Pisa, Rome, Stockholm, Venice, Verona and Weeze (near Düsseldorf, across the border from Nijmegen, Netherlands.

A few other airlines serve domestic destinations and Copenhagen and Helsinki.

By Train

Up to 11 trains daily run to and from Sassari (35 minutes).

By Bus

Buses to Sassari leave regularly and take about an hour. There are up to eight buses to Porto Torres and other destinations include two buses daily to Bosa and three buses daily to Olbia.

Sleep

Upscale

Keep Connected

Internet

Almost all towns and cities in Italy have internet cafes. A growing number of budget hostels and nicer hotels have free Wifi. By law all public-access internet points must keep records of web sites viewed by customers, and even the customer's ID: expect to be refused access if you don't provide identification. Hotels providing Internet access are not required to record IDs if the connection is provided in the guest's room, although if the connection is offered in the main public hall then IDs are required. Publicly available wireless access without user identification is illegal, so open Wi-Fi hotspots (like the ones you might expect to find in a mall or cafée) all have some form of (generally one-time) registration.

Phone

See also: International Telephone Calls

The main networks are TIM (Telecom Italia Mobile, part of Telecom Italia, formerly state controlled), Vodafone, Wind, and 3 (only UMTS cellphones). Best advice is to buy a prepaid SIM card (from € 10 upwards) and a cheap mobile phone (€ 19 upwards) to put it in (if you don't have a cellphone already that you can use). It will be much more practical. All land line numbers start with 0. Mobile numbers start with 3. Numbers starting with 89 are high-fee services. In case of emergency call the appropriate number from the list below. Such calls are usually free and calls to 112, 113 (police), 115 (fire), 118 (health) can be made from payphones for free without the need of inserting coins. 112 (standard emergency number in GSM specification) can be dialed in any case for free from any mobile phone.

Post

Post Italiane is the national postal services of Italy and has quite an efficient network of postal offices and reliable postal services. Standard letters and postcards (up to 20 grams) cost €0.39 to send within Europe and the Mediterranean countries outside Europe and €0.41 to all other destinations throughout the country. Up to 50 grams, prices start at €0.52 for Europe, €0.62 for other areas. Packages start at €1.55 within Europe, and around €2.50 for other countries. Post office business hours in Italy are from 8:30am to 2:00pm from Monday to Friday, with closing times at Saturday and the last day of the month at 12 noon. In general, larger post offices in bigger cities and in tourist areas keep longer hours than those in local towns. Also note that business hours in the south might be different than the north, with longer hours at night, especially in summer! If you want to send packages you might try faster and more reliable/efficient private courier companies like TNT, UPS or DHL.

External Links

• Official Governmental Website
• For more information check the official Alghero Touristic website (English, Italian, French).