[ Aug.2020 ] Now it was our fourth day in Alghero, the north eastern town in Sardinia in Italy.
The breakfast today was the prickly pear we had bought the day before in the market.
It was nice and very sweet, but there were so many hard seeds, which was annoying for me.
My husband called this ‘fig’.
Apparently in Italian this fruit is called Fico di India (Indian fig).
He goes out after breakfast as usual.
On the day he went back to the market and bought some horse meat, which we do not see in England where we live.
They were sliced thinly and the butcher apparently told him to marinate in olive oil and then grill lightly.
After that, he went out again, this time to the supermarket to buy some wine, Balsamic vinegar, toilet rolls and so on.
He is a doer anyway, but seemed particularly enjoying this ‘life in Alghero’ and in high spirits.
Anyway, we cut short our work on the tables today and decided to go to the beach.
There is a long beach on the north side of the old town in Alghero, probably it stretches 4~5 km.
It was too far to walk there from our ‘home’, so we went to the nearest bus stop.
But the bus was not frequent.
We walked one stop and asked at the kiosk there about the bus, but in the end we gave up waiting for the bus and called for a taxi.
Then, the taxi which was supposed to be with us in 8 minutes finally arrived after 15 minutes’ waiting.
The good environment, the great foods and low prices—Alghero was like a paradise, but the convenience was not its strength.
The name of the beach we went was Maria Pia, which was a part of the long beach and there was a rather poor pinewood.
When we went down to the beach, we found many yellow and red parasols.
We decided to stay here.
To rent a parasol and two deck chairs cost € 20 for a day and € 12 for a half day.
It was already after noon, so we said ‘a half day please’ but apparently the half day price started at 2 pm.
I felt as if we’d lost a bit of money, but thought it did not matter too much, then the vendor suggested ‘How about €15 ?”, which was good.
I like this kind of flexibilities.
The distance between each parasol was not far, though.
They did not seem to have particular measures for the social distancing here.
The sea was really beautiful with three kinds of blue depending on the distance.
The sand was fine, so even I could walk in bare feet.
Inside the sea was the same.
The water was cold at first, but after I got used to it, it was the comfortable.
It was very shallow.
Even when I was near the buoy, I could stand up and the water reached only to my chest.
After enjoying the bathing, I had a nap on the deck chair — this is the holiday.
Here everyone including giants and old people with many wrinkles were in their swimsuits or bikinis and enjoying the sea.
After a while, around 3:30 pm, we went back into the sea.
By then, the light had changed and the tide was high.
Around the buoy area, there was a cold current at my feet.
We fully enjoyed the beach and then went back home.
We waited for the bus and again it did not come, so we took a taxi again.
As soon as we arrived at home, my husband marinated the horse meat in the olive oil with garlic and salt.
I tasted a piece of the garlic later and found it tasted so strong that I could not breath for a second.
After a while he grilled the meat, but unfortunately, it was quite tough.
Instead, the tomatoes we had in the salad was very nice and sweet, which was almost like a fruit.
According to my husband, when he was choosing them, the vendor, an old woman said to him “Look at them. These tomatoes are appealing to you, saying eat me!”.
