Alghero
Discover Alghero
A concise introduction to Alghero, its geography, history and culture.
Introduction
Alghero is a town of about 44,000 people on Sardinia's north-west coast, on a bay backed by the limestone headland of Capo Caccia.
The old town is a compact grid of narrow lanes inside surviving Aragonese sea walls, with seven towers and a run of bastions along the water. Inside it are the cathedral, with a Catalan Gothic bell tower, and the church and cloister of San Francesco.
What makes Alghero unlike anywhere else in Italy is the language: alguerés, a form of Catalan, is co-official here and still spoken.
North of the town lies Porto Conte, a deep sheltered bay, and beyond it Capo Caccia, a limestone cliff with the sea cave of Neptune's Grotto at its foot.
The coast is the Riviera del Corallo, named for the red coral fished offshore and worked in the town.