If Queen's Day was not enough, last Wednesday was Remembrance Day, and last Thursday was Liberation Day. Remembrance Day honors all those who lost their lives during World War 2 and is marked by a solemn ceremony in Dam Square where survivors and various Dutch dignitaries, including the Queen and the crown prince, make an appearance. At 8PM there is a 2 minute silence. I went with my Dutch Identity class and it was quite amazing, at 8PM sharp the city went dead quiet for 2 minutes. Other than for the massive crowds you would not know you were in the center of a bustling city. The Queen did make an appearance and I did get a brief glimpse of her. Unfortunately we were behind the main stage area and could not see much of the proceedings.
The Queen is on the front right and the crown prince is directly behind her.
After the ceremony we joined our professor at a very traditional Dutch bar for a few remembrance drinks. The bar served traditional Dutch mixed drinks and beer through a window.
Thursday was Liberation Day which commemorates the Dutch liberation from Germany after World War 2. It is celebrated by lots of live concerts sprinkled throughout the city. It is kind of a mini-Queen's Day. Unfortunately I was too busy writing papers to attend any of the festivities.
Friday night a couple of us went to a bar that serves only Dutch microbrewery beer. That had over 30 beers on tap and over 120 in bottles. All the ones we sampled were delicious, including the Stormvogel; a traditional Dutch barley wine.
Saturday afternoon Kelly and I took off for Alghero, Italy. Alghero is a small city on the coast of the island Sardegna just south of Sardinia. Words to describe Alghero: beautiful, stunning, serene, quaint, authentic, amazing. Neither of us, nor anybody we talked to, had heard of Alghero before we found super cheap flights there through RyanAir so it was a pretty big unknown. However it blew our expectations out of the water.
After landing at Sardegna's tiny airport we caught the bus to Alghero where we checked in at the low-budget, but high quality B+B Terrazza which was situated on the top floor of an apartment building about 5 minutes walking from the Old City and port.
Our room.
Below are views from our balcony.
After settling in we headed back down to the port to find a quick dinner. It didn't take long before we stumbled across what became our go to place for food, a restaurant dedicated to making the most delicious Focaccia sandwiches. Local wine+fresh Focaccia sandwiches=a delicious dinner.
After wandering around the Old City for a bit we headed back to our place for the night. Each morning we were greeted by our host, Mario, with a friendly "Bongiorno" and an array of tea, coffee, juice, fresh fruit, yogurt, toast, jam, and slices of provolone and meat.
Sunday morning we went to see Neptune's Grotto, a sea cave with spectacular stalactite and stalagmite formations. There are two ways of getting there, by bus and foot down a 600+ staircase or by boat. We opted for the boat.
Sardinian ruins
The 600+ stairs leading down to Neptune's Grotto.
Neptune's Grotto was discovered in the 15th century by fishermen who had thought they had found the dwelling of Neptune, the sea god. I too would have thought I had found the dwelling of a mystical creature had I stumbled across this natural wonder.
View of Alghero from the sea
After our morning excursion to Neptune's Grotto we got lunch at our favorite Focaccia store, then discovered that right next door was an amazing gelato place. Over the course of our stay we must have at least sampled over half of their flavors, and none were disappointing. However one flavor stood head and shoulders above the rest, the Fragola (Strawberry). Kelly and I agreed neither of us had ever tasted strawberry ice cream that tasted like the sweetest, freshly picked strawberries you have ever had.
The rest of the afternoon we spent wandering the narrow streets of the Old City and along the sea defenses, looking at the menus of the many restaurants trying to decide where we would get our pasta dinner.
A dome we believe was designed by Gaudi.
We finally settled on a place on top of the sea wall. Kelly was set on getting spaghetti with lobster (which we thought was only 12 Euros, turned out to be 36 Euros...woops) and I got a lamb ragu with feta over some kind of pasta. Both were very good, although the 36 Euro spaghetti with lobster probably really was only worth 12 Euros. Regardless, the sunset made up for it.
Monday we rented electric-motor assisted bikes and cruised along the coast and through the country side for the day.
Along the way we saw some Sardinian ruins.
And of course no trip to Italy is complete without seeing some vineyards.
We found a lovely beach and hung out there for a few hours in the afternoon before wandering down the coast only to find our own private beach. The huge amount of dried seaweed may have had something to do with why no one else was there, but we did have it to ourselves for a while.
The first beach we stopped at.
The desserted beach we found is in the distance.
Our private beach. All the brown stuff is dried seaweed.
After returning our bikes, we went and ordered a couple of pizzas from a place we had scouted out the day before. We brought them back to our room and ate them on our balcony before watching a very bizzarre Italian reality TV show called Human Take Control.
Before heading to the airport on Tuesday we walked along the rocky shoals below the city walls where we found a large number of what we were told was old trebuchet ammunition, as well as beautiful rocks, pottery shards, and sea glass.
Old trebuchet ammo
Somehow we managed to miss the bus to the airport, and had to take a taxi instead (it would have cost us a Euro a piece for the bus, instead we ended up paying 22 Euros for the taxi...yuck). If anyone reading this has the opportunity to do so, I would highly recommend going to Alghero or another town on Sardegna at some point. If you go before peak tourist season it is fairly cheap, and because it still has a relatively low profile it has a very authentic feel. Flying there and back we had the added bonus of flying over part of the Alps.
