A to Z of Cathedrals – A is for Alghero in Sardinia

 

I first visited Alghero in Sardinia in 2009, I remember that it rained a lot.  I thought that it might be a good idea to stay dry and visit the Cathedral but sadly it was closed for restoration.

This has happened to me quite regularly I have to say, I am quite  unlucky when it comes to visiting Cathedrals and I very often find scaffolding, men at work and no entry signs.

Eventually the rain eased.  There was a little bar that overlooked the sea and we ordered Italian beer and some sandwiches that when they arrived we had to eat quickly because of the unwanted attention of hundreds of irritating flies that quickly became uninvited guests at our table.  The waiter apologised and explained that this time of year is always bad for these little pests.

It was really warm and we were glad of the seafront location as we sat and watched the activity on the promontory overlooking the sea and we were envious of the unhurried pace of life that the local people seemed to enjoy.  A bit of a walk, a bit of a chat, a bit of a walk, a bit of a chat, a bit of a walk, a bit of a chat and then turn around and do it all over again as they dawdle back in the opposite direction.

We navigated the city and as went peered down slightly shabby narrow streets, disfigured by graffiti, care worn but lived in with brightly colour-washed buildings with ancient coats of paint like fragments of history which have blotched and blurred by a combination of successive harsh summers, equally hard winters and general neglect resulting in a glorious wash resembling water colours running in the rain, everything dripping and running, liquefying and merging, leaking and fusing.

The streets between the houses were like deep gullies made brilliant by vibrant washing lines even after a night of torrential rain strung outside of windows like carnival bunting as though in anticipation of a parade, stretching across the streets dripping indiscriminately and swaying gently backwards and forwards above the secret doorways and back alleys and with realistically today, in view of the weather, only an outside chance of drying out.

Alghero has a Catalan heritage and even today Catalan is recognised as an official language and street names appear in both Catalan and Italian. A good percentage of the population speak this language although being rather isolated from direct Catalan influence over the years the dialect of Alghero today is said to be similar to the language spoken in Catalonia between the middle of the fourteenth and the end of the seventeenth century.  For an Algheran to speak to a Catalan today would be rather like me trying to have a sensible conversation with William Shakespeare.

As if to emphasise this Catalan connection Alghero has four twin towns, Tarragona and Balaguer in Catalonia, Encamp in Andorra (almost Catalonia) and Catalan speaking Palma in Majorca.

We walked along the city walls with the stunning views out to sea and we made note of promising looking restaurants for our evening meal.  We frequently detoured into the labyrinth of streets to explore the town and especially liked a deli bar/restaurant but were shocked by the price of the wine and decided instead to look for a supermarket.

 

Odd One Out – Markets

Did you spot the odd one out?

According to my stats page a lot of you flirted with this one.

Well done Sheree, Sue and Margaret and Derrick who got it right but for the wrong reason.

European markets.  This is the odd one out because it was taken in Leicester in the UK and the UK is in Europe but sadly not in the EU.  All of the others are.

I was born in Leicester in 1954 and my parents lived quite close to the city centre.  I don’t remember much about it because we left when I was six but I do rather curiously remember the Leicester Market where Mum would go shopping maybe twice a week.  I never liked the place.

On my return journey to the city a couple of weeks ago I went looking for Lineker’s fruit and vegetable pitch,  Gary Lineker is/was a famous England footballer whose family worked the Leicester market.  I asked this man where it was and he burst out laughing.  “Been gone for twenty years he said” so, hiding my embarrassment  I asked him if I could take his picture instead and he happily obliged.

France, Vic-Sur-Aisne and World-War-One

The campsite where we were staying in the village of Berny-Riviere was about a mile away from the nearby town of Vic-Sur-Aisne.  Not many people from the campsite seemed to go there because everything that a family needed was provided for on site.

I didn’t want to go on a trampoline, or a rowing boat, go fishing or play laser-quest and I didn’t want to pay for Wifi when it should be free so I got into the habit of after breakfast taking myself off to the town where I found a rather agreeable bar with pavement tables and free internet access.  After a few days my granddaughter Molly began to join me and I liked that.

Vic-Sur-Aisne turned out to be a rather interesting town.  During the First-World-War it was almost permanently on the front line with fighting never far away.  It sits equidistance between the major battle sites of the Somme to the north and Verdun to the east.  What made it important was that it was a major railway interchange where troops would be transferred back and forth to the battle lines in between front line duty and periods of rest or to be hospitalised.

This meant that it came under regular enemy fire and even today the older buildings in the town show pock-marked battle scars where shells and bullets had picked away at the stones and the bricks.  A few years ago I visited Bosnia and Herzegovina in old Yugoslavia and twenty years after the civil war I wasn’t surprised to still see the evidence of fighting in damage to the buildings but here in France I was somewhat taken aback to be examining shrapnel damage from a hundred years ago.

Vic-Sur-Aisne is situated on a linear historical site called the Ligne Rouge, which is a walk (a long walk) or a drive along a route which more or less represents the approximate Front Line of the war.  Approximate because it did move back and forth a little bit over the four years of the conflict.  Every village has a war memorial which honours the fallen in both World Wars and every village has a military graveyard gruesomely disproportionate to the size of the village.

Vic-Sur-Aisne is no exception, it has a population of under two thousand but in the military graveyard there are over three thousand memorial white crosses as headstones.  I visited the graveyard one day to pay my respects.  On another day I visited the nearby graveyard at Ambleny where there are nearly eleven thousand graves and I was struck by the enormity of the War and the appalling number of casualties.

Ambleny is the largest military graveyard in Picardy and contains the graves of two French soldiers who were caught in civilian clothing in a bar and were shot as deserters to set an example to others.  There was no such thing as PTSD in 1917.  They were posthumously pardoned in 1923. I bet they were glad about that!

I liked the town of Vic-Sur-Aisne, I liked the Wednesday street market where I bought Toulouse sausage to make a cassoulet, I liked the friendly local people in the bar who made me feel welcome, I liked the boulangerie that sold tempting pastries, I liked sitting on the pavement outside the bar beneath the tower of a medieval castle where I daily reflected on the history of the region and thanked my lucky stars that I have never been involved in such horror as previously took place here.

I daily thanked the soldiers that died here protecting freedom and democracy so that one hundred years later it was possible to come here with my family and friends to enjoy a lovely holiday…