Alghero

People lived around Alghero long before the town existed: the Ozieri culture buried its dead at Anghelu Ruju in the 4th millennium BC, Nuragic villages such as Palmavera followed from around 1500 BC, and by the 8th century BC Phoenicians and Nuragic Sardinians shared the metalworking settlement of Sant'Imbenia, trading with the Etruscans. The town itself was founded between 1102 and 1112, when the Genoese Doria family was allowed to build a fortified port on an empty stretch of coast. Apart from a year under Pisa in 1283–84, it stayed in the Genoese orbit for two centuries.

In 1354 the Crown of Aragon took the town. Peter IV encouraged families from Catalonia, Valencia, Majorca and Aragon to settle with generous privileges, and they replaced the original inhabitants, some of whom were sent to Iberia and Majorca as slaves. The newcomers' speech settled into the Catalan still heard today. In the early 16th century Alghero became a bishopric and a King's City, Ferdinand the Catholic built most of its walls, and in 1541 the Emperor Charles V stayed at the Palazzo d'Albis. Spanish Habsburg rule lasted until 1702.

Sardinia passed to the House of Savoy in 1720, and a policy of Italianisation began. A famine in 1821 led to a revolt that was bloodily suppressed, and under Fascism part of the surrounding marshland was drained and the new settlements of Fertilia and Santa Maria la Palma were founded. Bombing in 1943 heavily damaged the historic centre. Once malaria was defeated in the 1950s, Alghero grew into one of Sardinia's most popular holiday towns.

Alghero's identity is Catalan. The townspeople, the algueresos, call it Barceloneta, little Barcelona, and the old town shows many features of Catalan medieval architecture. An 1888 book by Eduard Toda, Un poble català d'Itàlia, revived the links with Catalonia, and Catalan has had official recognition in the town since 1997. Around a quarter of residents have Algherese Catalan as their mother tongue, fewer use it every day, but almost nine in ten understand it, and singers such as Franca Masu have brought new songs in the language. Because so many families came in from the surrounding villages, Sardinian is widely spoken too, alongside Italian.

The most important religious event is Setmana Santa, Holy Week, an Easter celebration of Spanish origin in which almost the whole town takes part. Other processions honour Our Lady of Valverde and the Santo Cristo of the Coral Coast, whose mass is held at sea. Red coral, among the finest in the Mediterranean, is the town's emblem and appears on its coat of arms and flag, and local crafts include the lobster pots that fishermen wove from rush and wild-olive shoots.

The sea shapes the calendar: sailing regattas, open-water swims and climbing on the Capo Caccia cliffs. The town has hosted the Giro d'Italia and rounds of the Rally di Sardegna, and the Alghero–Scala Piccada hill climb is a long-standing motor race. In summer painters set up their easels on the Magellano bastion.

About 42,000 people live in Alghero, the fifth-largest city in Sardinia. The population is ageing — nearly three in ten residents are over 65 — and immigrants make up about 7 per cent, the largest groups born in Romania, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Bangladesh.

Tourism is the main business, built on the coast, the old town and the airport, whose routes are almost all seasonal. Coral working remains one of the most important local trades, fishing boats still use the harbour below the walls, and the vineyards of the Nurra plain supply the cooperative winery at Santa Maria la Palma. Alghero is also the island's third university centre, home to the University of Sassari's architecture and design department, housed in the old hospital in the historic centre, restored from 2006.

People live in the newer districts beyond the old town, such as Cuguttu, in the second homes of the Lido, and in outlying villages like Fertilia, Maristella and Guardia Grande. In summer the population swells and evenings stretch past midnight on the seafront; in winter, with few flights, the town returns to a quieter local rhythm.

Alghero's cooking is a blend of Catalan and Sardinian traditions, built above all on fish and shellfish from the town's fishing port. Its most famous dish is aragosta all'algherese, Catalan-style lobster served as a salad with raw tomato and onion. The local spiny lobster, the queen of the Alghero table, was caught until the 1970s in traps woven from rush and wild-olive shoots.

Sea urchins, bogamarí in the local Catalan, are a passion: they go into spaghetti and have their own festival in January and February, when they are at their fullest and most flavourful. Other classic dishes include spaghetti with bottarga, coppazza, monzette baked under salt, and paella algherese.

Wine comes from the vineyards of the surrounding Nurra plain, where the cooperative winery of Santa Maria la Palma is well known; the prehistoric tombs of Anghelu Ruju were discovered while digging in a local vineyard. Eating out is a large part of the town's appeal, from restaurants in the old town's lanes to cafés on the battlements above the harbour, and in summer the bars along the Lungomare Valencia stay busy late into the night.