Sardinia's Quiet Charm

Alghero has cobblestone charm in spades. I’d always thought of Italy as a mecca for tourists and travellers alike, a place where crowds were never far away—whether posing for photos in front of the Tower of Pisa, lining up for gondola rides in Venice, or fighting for beach space on the Amalfi Coast.

And then I went to Sardinia. In January.

Being based in London means lesser-known destinations throughout Europe are often only a cheap flight away through a myriad of budget airlines like Ryanair and EasyJet, and so it was that my flatmate Claire and I made our way to the town of Alghero in northwest Sardinia for a weekend. Located off the western coast of Italy in the Mediterranean—its oblong shape like a soccer ball kicked up by Italy’s boot—the island of Sardinia has changed hands many times throughout the years, its history stretching back to at least 1,500 B.C. I was immediately taken in by this sense of timelessness and the effect that it had on the island’s rugged beauty.

Unlike the graceful palm trees from places like Tahiti and Fiji, with trunks arched like nimble dancers, the palms that line the streets of Alghero stand tall and straight, more like hardy soldiers with thick necks and heavy feet. In their shadows (assuming the sun was out, of course) grow groves of orange and lemon trees, and further out of town, prickly pear cacti dot the hills. Beautiful as it was, we couldn’t help asking ourselves, where is everyone?

You have the beach to yourself in the offseason. We slowly realized our trip was going to be filled with the peculiarities of visiting a resort town in the off-season. Gone were the tourists flocking to the water and expected crowds. Walking along the edge of the harbor, we passed shack after shack, little gelaterias and pizzerias closed up for the winter. Instead, we were left with the echo of our own footsteps against the cobblestone streets, every alley as empty as an abandoned Hollywood set. It would have been easy to lose heart, to spend our precious few days in Sardinia holed up in warm cafés with one-Euro lattes, but we challenged ourselves to make the most of Italy in the winter.

Because Alghero itself didn’t hold enough to keep us occupied for three days, we took advantage of a reliable (if infrequent) public transport system to carry us out of town. We went first to Bosa, a sleepy little village of 8,000 an hour’s bus ride down the coast. There we climbed a hill to the town’s medieval castle called Serravalle and looked out over a spread of terra cotta roofs spilling down towards the sea. The next day, we turned inland to Sasseri, the second largest city after Sardinia’s capital of Cagliari. From a Saturday morning market to a piazza outside the island’s first university, Sasseri gave us a taste of life in a city on Sardinia. If we’d come during the summer, with the sun high and the beaches calling our name, I don’t think we’d have been nearly as motivated to take quite so many day-trips out of Alghero.

Each night in Alghero, Claire and I got to know several of the waiters and bartenders who had started to recognize us. Our final night, some of them even took us to a club called Aqua del Mar, where we finally found all the hidden locals. During the summer, we were told, the town’s population can swell to over 100,000, but during the winter it settles to about 45,000; experiencing Alghero with more than twice the amount of people is hard to imagine.

Visiting Sardinia in the off-season is an unusual experience, for which I’m grateful. It was as if the island had taken off her makeup, let her hair down and let us see the real her—without the glow of warm sunshine or the energetic hum of visitors to distract us. Even the peeling paint of old houses and cracked, uneven sidewalks added to the rustic beauty we’d come to love about Sardinia. No matter the suntans or scoops of gelato we didn’t get…there is time for that still.

photos by Candace Rose Rardon

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Candace Rose Rardon is a freelance writer, part-time photographer, sometime musician, and full-time lover of mochas and Moleskins. Although originally from Virginia, she is now based in London, where she is studying towards a Master’s in Travel Writing from Kingston University, and recent published stories have covered working in New Zealand, saving money in Macau, and cycling in Denmark. You can join her on the road less taken on her blog, Rare Travels, or follow her adventures on Twitter