Trauma on the Beach

---

We still can’t quite believe that we drove an hour to get to La Pelosa Beach yesterday (and it was a truly stunning beach), but we then had to turn around and come back again because we couldn’t find a square millimetre of unoccupied sand to lay our towels on. Issy reminds me that we walked about ten kilometres along a pristine sand beach about an hour from home last summer, without seeing a single other human being. We make a note to remember to never again take our Aussie beaches for granted.

We discuss some other observations we’ve made about life here.

We’ve seen lots of Italian parents here with children of other races, who we assume must be adopted. You hardly ever see this back home, and we understand that Aussie adoption laws are so tough as to make adoption of a child from another country close to impossible. We understand the need for safeguards, but if a child from a third world country is a genuine orphan with no family of its own willing or able to care for it, and there are loving Aussie parents keen to adopt, then surely that’s a win-win, and I’m not at all sure why our authorities would want to make it so hard for this to happen.

We’ve noticed a very cute old lady in a few different spots around town here whose unofficial job seems to be to feed the resident cat population. She’s always surrounded by these adorable creatures, and usually also by a crowd of camera toting tourists. Dogs also seem to be very much loved here, and every second person seems to have a beloved pooch in tow as they stroll the promenade at night watching the spectacular sunsets.

What’s not to love about Alghero. The locals care deeply about the welfare of the world’s children as well as adoring their animals, the beaches are stunning (if not a little crowded), the weather is perfect, the old town is ridiculously cute, and the food is to die for. I think Issy might want to move here.

We give up on the idea of trying to go back to La Pelosa and decide instead to wander north along the foreshore in search of a beach with vacant sunlounges and umbrellas. There’s no shortage of nice sandy beaches; the beach in front of our accommodation stretches for as far as we can see. Sunlounges and umbrellas are a different matter. We plonk ourselves down on a vacant set with the intention of staying for the day, but not long afterwards we get evicted; we’re told that all the vacant sets have been reserved. We walk further along the beach only to be told that not only are they all reserved today, but for the “next few months“ as well. It seems that I’ve failed in my responsibilities as a travel planner. I managed to remember to book flights, trains, accommodation, tours and car hire, but then forgot the blindingly obvious, to book the sunlounges. What was I thinking. Anyway, every cloud has a silver lining. We manage to find a nice soft patch of sand under some trees at the back of the beach, where it’s a lot cooler than where the sunlounges are, with the added bonus that we don’t have to fork out an exorbitant amount of cash to rent it, so we spread our towels out, lie down, and settle in for the day. It is extremely pleasant.

We are however slightly concerned. On the way here we passed a large, very institutional looking building occupying a prime spot right on the beach. We assumed that it was a hotel until we saw a sign saying that it was a Trauma Hospital. We now can’t help but wonder why anyone would build a trauma hospital overlooking a busy tourist beach, and the only conclusion we can come to is that a lot of trauma must happen here. We wonder what sort of trauma. Getting your leg chomped off by a shark or getting run over by a speedboat are a couple that quickly come to mind. It‘s comforting to know that if something like that happens to one of us at least we won’t need to go too far to get help. That said I think I’d probably prefer we weren’t in such a trauma riddled location in the first place. We agree that we need to be very vigilant.

We enjoy our final Italian pizza at a restaurant overlooking a roundabout, and soon find that we have front row seats to some of the best entertainment in town. Our favourite act was the gentleman doing laps of the insanely busy roundabout on his moped while talking on his mobile phone.

---

Photos

Beach Rules 1
If you want to make sure no one invades your space, get there early and put a neat ring of stones around your chairs and umbrellas.

Beach Rules 2
Why would anyone want to lie on pristine white sand when there’s acres of unoccupied seaweed to stretch out on.

Beach Rules 3
What to do if you’re a high school student and you can’t afford the sun lounge rent. Well you find ten friends and split the cost of course. We saw 11 of these youngsters under the one umbrella at one stage - 2 lying down, 6 sitting and 3 more standing up.

Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Not an inch to spare
Wow, that truly is a crowded beach. Sorry you didn't get to enjoy it. Interesting observations about the families.