When we left Cagliari we did not immediately head north to Alghero.  Since we had some time and a car under us, we decided to spend a few hours visiting some interesting places south of the city, the town of Pula and the ancient Roman port ruins at Nora.  We had coffee in Pula at a great little cafe sitting in the warm sun and then got a personalized tour of the ruins of the small Roman port city of Nora by the onsite archaeologist, Valeria.  The small Roman theater  (couldn’t have seated more than 200) may have been the highlight, but having the insight of our own archaeologist was a treat.

The coffee shop in Pula

The coffee drinker in Pula

The colors of Pula

The colors of Pula

The old roman theater

The ruins of the ancient bath house

One of the mosaic floors

The ruins with a cistern

The tower

Our wonderful guide, Valeria

We then traveled north to Alghero on a very nice four lane highway through the city of Sassari and then down to the west coast of Sardegna at Alghero.  We were both very taken with Alghero (accent on the “gher”).  It is a quaint medieval port city and like most of the places we have visited, it has a history dating back too far to recount here.  As with many of the port cities we have visited here in Italy, it suffered severe damage from Allied bombing during WW II.  Most of it has been rebuilt, but does contain several monuments and plaques to people who perished during those events.  It has an international airport just outside the city for those wishing to get here easily.

Walking along the sea wall that borders the “centro storico” (historic center) we met a man doing the same thing we were, strolling and taking pictures of the ever-changing evening sky.  We struck up a conversation with Gianfranco and ended up getting a personal tour of the old city from a native.

Capo Caccia

Capo Caccia

Gianfranco with Holly

The daily market

The daily market

We had thought of driving to the very exclusive northeast side of the island to Porto Cervo and Porto Rotondo, but decided the four hours of driving it would take for the round trip just to spend too much for lunch and coffee would be better spent closer to Alghero.

Sardegna is famous for a unique style of ancient stone structures called nuraghi.  They date from somewhere between 2,700 – 4,500 years old and vary in size and the amount of fortification,  but all have conical tower and were the center of social and spiritual life for the people who spent their days there.  Some of the larger ones are also surrounded by defensive walls, although there is little evidence of them being used to fend off attacks.  Some 7,000 of these sites have been discovered with theories that there were up to 10,000 of them.  They dot the island seemingly everywhere you go.  Like all ancient dwellings, I feel a sense of wonder about the people who lived, played, worked and died in these places.  The style of these stone structures is unique to Sardegna and the population is still a bit of a mystery, with little knowledge other than these strange structures and the few artifacts that have been discovered at the sites.

Picture of the posted plan of the site

Next stop was the 3,600 – 6,000 year old Necropolis of Anghelu Ruju. Where again, because of the season, we were the only people there and were able to obtain a personal tour from the onsite custodian and archaeologist.  Discovered by accident in 1903, it contained the remains and artifacts spanning over 2,000 years of use.

Our guide and I

Decorations inside

If we were to plan this trip again, we might have flown into one end of the island and out of the other.  As it was we needed to drive back to Cagliari to catch our flight home.  Rather than retracing our route through the middle of the island, we decided to take the road along the west coast of the island.  We had the road nearly to ourselves and the wild scenic vistas were well worth the extra 30 minutes the route took.

Last week we stayed in Livorno and toured some of the hill cities of Tuscany by car and that will be the next post.

As our Facebook friends already know from some brief posts on that site, we spent last week in Sardegna.  We started in the largest city, Cagliari, on the south end of the island and then drove to the northwest part of the island to Alghero.  Sardegna  is the second largest island in the Mediterranean Sea (just behind Sicily) and turned out to be one of the most beautiful places we have visited here.

Sardegna is also one of the world’s Blue Zones.  Those are places  where people live longer and supposedly happier lives and have the highest percentage of centenarians.  Not sure how many 100 year olds we met, but we found the Sardegnians to be genuinely open, courteous and friendly.  Everyone we met and spoke with greeted us with a warmth that we could all take lessons from.

Cagliari

When we arrived at the train station from the airport, which are both at sea level,  we followed our Google Maps directions to our apartment and one of the first things we ran into was this:

The stairway to where our apartment was and it was quite a bit of work with our luggage.

That led us to the Castello district where we were staying.  It is so named because it once held a Pisan castle that comprises most of the old city.  Sitting on a rock outcropping above the city and the port, it affords magnificent views of the surrounding landscape and the port.

View of the port from not far from where we were staying

Bastione di San Remy

Piazza on top of the Bastione di San Remy

Il Duomo

The rest of Cagliari was filled with cute neighborhoods, great  restaurants and quaint streets.

The waterfront

Nice boats

Very tidy and well kept neighborhood

Love the color of the houses

On a sunny day the laundry comes out

Giacomo is Italian for Jame, so I found my place

The old Roman amphitheater carved into the side of the rock

Street scene

Street scene

Great Sardegnian fish dish

Cozze (mussels) done right

From here we rented a car and drove north to Alghero and that will be our next stop.

We took a short trip to the Italian Rivera early last November and stayed in the small beach town of Alassio.   Like any beach town in winter, it was a little deserted and the beaches were empty.  You certainly can enjoy the walks, views, and the few restaurants that were open, but it can seem a little too quiet and deserted.

The skies and sea were constantly putting on a show for us and they were spectacular.

The beach and sky

Sunset

Sunset from Alassio

The beach in Cervo

The town itself was quite nice and is noted for its wall with plaques to famous people who have visited.  Below you will find the one for Jean Cocteau

Piazza in Alassio

The empty beach

The amazing colors of the water

The muretta in Alassio

Note Jean Cocteau

Vignette in Alassio

Workshop in Alassio

All packed up for the season

The empty beach in Alassio

Alassio

Alassio Beach Walk

A Mansion in Alassio

Alassio

Alassio

Because wanted to explore the area, we flew into Torino (Turin), rented a car and drove to Alassio.  That allowed us to take several drives to places that we could not get to using our usual public transportation.  First was a drive into the mountains above Alassio.

Alassio from above

Looking inland from behind Alassio

Small church in the hills above Alassio

Inside

We returned along the coast to the west of Alassio to discover the incredibly charming town of Cervo.  We climbed to the church through the winding streets and passageways to take in one of the most beautiful views from the front steps of a church I have seen.

View from below in Cervo

The way up

Cervo

Cervo

Cervo

Cervo

I didn’t know bougainvillea was still blooming in November

Half way up in Cervo

Private terrace

The sea from half way up in Cervo

Love these stairs cut right into the stone

Porto Maurizio

Since we were so close and the weather did not lend itself to swimming or beach combing, we decided to drive the hour and a half to Nice just across the French border.  I have always liked Nice and even in the cool drizzle it was a great place to spend a few hours and eat lunch.  The views from the highway down to the communities of the French Riviera alone were worth the trip

That is quite a row of yachts

It was a great trip full of beautiful images.  It would be interesting to return in the summer when I assume it would be hard to move with all of the beach crowd filling every possible space.

One last image.  As were many of the pictures in this post, this was taken from our apartment window.

There will be more catch up posts to follow.

When we decided to take our trip to Venezia and the surrounding area, we had not really planned on stopping in Padova.  When we left Asolo, our flight out of Treviso did not leave until 5:30 (and it was late so we did not actually leave until 6:15) so we decided to spend part of the day in a city we had heard many good things about.  It was almost on the way, so why not.  As I said in my last post, it was quite a wonderful surprise.  We loved it.

A little side note is that when I was a senior in college, I had the lead in the Shakespeare play we produced that year (I was also the assistant scene designer and scenic artist for the production).  The play was “Much Ado About Nothing” and I played “Signior Benedick of Padua”.  I always wanted to see my “hometown”.

The old center (Centro Storico) was everything you hope for in the historic center of an Italian city, with architecture, restaurants and markets that compare to any we have seen.  I really want to come back here for a longer visit.  For those of you who are looking for something a little different, by train it is only a half an hour from Venice, an hour and a half from Florence and two hours from Milan.

This city had one of the better markets we have seen.  Here are just a few of the vendors. It was too bad we weren’t staying longer, I wanted to buy a little of everything.

My lunch just before we left was a wonderful, warm octopus salad.  What a treat.

I have been a little neglectful for the past few months, but I am going to try to play a little catch up for the next few weeks.  I hope you enjoy.

Forty years ago, a year before we met, both Holly and I traveled through Bolzano at approximately the same time.  She was there for the Busoni International Piano Competition and I was just passing through on my way to Garmisch Partenkirchen, Germany.  When we talked about it later, we figured out that we could have both been on the same train north.   Rather irrelevant to our story now, but I could not pass up the romance.

We even revisited it briefly when Holly and I were traveling through Europe ten years later with my two older daughters, Erika and Jessica, and 15 month old daughter, Jamie, in tow. (I never knew how much motion sickness one child could have until we drove the winding roads of European Alps with Jamie.)  Zach was with us too, but he was in utero, so that may not count.

Holly had been enchanted with Bolzano during her time at the competition, but when we just drove in to it 10 years later, it actually did not seem all that special.  Since most of the historic center of Bolzano is pedestrian only, we missed the charming, beautiful part and did not get out of the car.

So, back to the present.  Since the weather where we were, Asolo, was just socked in, we thought why not get really bad weather and go further into the mountains and take another look at Bolzano. It was only two hours away.  Checking our trusty weather apps, we were rather surprised that the forecast was for for clear skies and almost 60 degrees.  Oh that climate change, it does seem like a reward at first.  So off we went, Holly driving and me as the trusty navigator, unsure of what kind of road conditions we might encounter but vowing to turn back at the first sign of trouble .

Most of the way we were met with clouds and a little fog but it was well above freezing and the roads were perfect.  As promised, when we neared Bolzano, we were greeted with a beautiful spring-like day and fell in love with the place all over again.

Bolzano is a city of just over 200,000 people in the autonomous province of Südtirol  (South Tyrol)  of northern Italy.  It was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire until the end of WW I when it was ceded to Italy.  At that time almost 90% of the population of not only the city but the province were German speakers.  There was a real push during the Fascist period to quash the native Germans, including not using the language in the schools and even forbidding its use.  After WW II, that suppression led to violent push back in the late 50s and early 60s.  Those protests are what led to the province’s autonomous designation (exactly what that means in reality, I do not know).  Bolzano is now definitely bi-lingual, Italian and German.  All of the street signs and restaurant menus we saw were in both languages.  We also found that most people could also converse in English.  Here is a map I found online of the language distribution of the province.  As you can see, the native speaking Germans still dominate the area.

All of that aside, it is a remarkable town.  From its daily fresh air market full of fresh vegetables and meats of all kinds, to its winding medieval streets  with the mountains peeking out in all directions, to its very cosmopolitan feel, this is one of my favorite spots I have  ever visited.  If you get half a chance to visit Bolzano, take it.

I am afraid that my pictures do not really do the place justice, but I think you can get the idea.

The market

My personal favorite

Tomorrow, I will post about our visit to Cortina d’Ampezzo.  Another absolutely glorious village situated high in the Italian Alps.

After leaving Venice, we rented a car so we could easily travel to the small town of Asolo to take in some of the vistas it is famous for.  It is right on the edge of the Alps and overlooks to Po River valley and it tributaries.  Although some of these pictures show blue sky, we ran into mostly fog and clouds.  It is a beautiful small village and we enjoyed our stay in a great little hotel, the terrific food in the restaurants and the fog created a quiet peacefulness that we found very relaxing, but most of the vistas will have to be enjoyed on another visit.

For my theater friends, yes, it is the same Asolo as the theater in Sarasota.  It was here that the 18th century theater was dismantled and taken to Florida by the Ringling family.  And another note is that Eleanora Duse lived here for the last years of her life and is buried here.

And just to make sure you understand its attraction for quiet beauty, Robert Browning also lived here for some time.

Our hotel, Albergo Al Sole

Since it was winter and the views were not to be had, we decided to make use of the car we had rented and see what the alps had to offer.  One day we went to Bolzano and the next we drove the two hours to Cortina d’Ampezzo.  Both were incredible days and those will be my next posts.