Sardinia, Italy

After a sweet and easeful passage from the Balearic Islands we arrived on the east coast of the island of Sardinia in the little town of Alghero. After docking a little Italian guy rode by on his bicycle and yelled "Viva America" to us---what a wonderful welcome to Italy!! That same wonderful Italian (Christopher) later asked us if he could kiss our American flag- go figure.....

Alghero is a delightful old Catalan city with Spanish and Gothic style buildings and the old walled town with towers and twisting, little cobblestone streets full of life and music and laughter. Our first night we walked along the harbor and saw full feather dressed American Indians singing and playing their flutes. Are we really in Italy?????
We thoroughly enjoyed our meanderings in Alghero along with great pizza and pasta and people watching. It's fun to hear the lilt of the Italian language altho we understand very little of it yet.

We left the city and spent a few days at a beautiful anchorage near Capo Caccia, a 150meter high cliff dropping staight into the sea. Cool, clear water and our first swim in Italy. There is a huge cave called Neptune's Grotto that we visited and it was too awesome for words.

Then we cruised on up to the northern coast and over to another little island called Asinara. Asinara is now a marine reserve but had previously been a quarantine island, then a first world war POW camp, and later a "super-prison" for organized crime (Mafia). It was like our Alcatraz. Now as a reserve it is a safe haven for rare white donkeys that may we say brayed "HEE-HAA" all night long!

Moving on we traveled over to the islands of the Archipelago of La Maddalena ( a group of seven islands between the northern coast of Sardinia and the southern coast of Corsica). Enjoyed the coves in and about these islands and then cruised down the north-east coast to the Costa Smeralda which is the playground for the "rich and famous". This time of year the people with mega yachts- some much longer than football fields, many with helicopters on their upper decks come to this area to display and compare the size of their toys. Great fun to watch as we anchor alongside of them and watch their crew, butlers and maids cater to their every whim and still somehow feel that we are having much more fun than they are.

So here we are ready to celebrate the full moon and lunar eclipse tonight in our little bit of ocean paradise. Wishing each of you your own paradise wherever it may be.................