Our fourth stop in Sardinia brought us to Alghero in the northwest corner of the island. Over the last 12 days we’ve traveled the length of the west coast, and the scenery got more spectacular with each leg of the journey. Up here in the northwest lush green mountains cascade into a beautiful blue sea with lots of sandy beaches in between.

Alghero was another near perfect combination of things we love: a charming medieval city center, great food and wine, and beautiful beaches just a short bike ride away. We rented some really nice bikes here and spent one day exploring the coast (and beaches) to the north and another day exploring to the south.

Food is incredible here — many classics from the Italian table plus quite a few distinctive Sardinian dishes. When the Spanish controlled Sardinia lots of Catalans settled here in Alghero, earning it the nickname Barcelonetta, or Little Barcelona. There is still a big Catalan influence on the cuisine and culture.

I’ve certainly eaten more dogfish here than I recall ever having anywhere before (perhaps never?). My favorite Sardinian antipasto consists of dogfish, octopus, or some other fish served all’algherese — cut into chunks and smothered with a fantastic cold and tangy sauce made from sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, and olive oil.

Tomorrow morning we take a brief respite from Sardinia to visit with our friend Dara in Rome. Then we’ll fly back to northeast Sardinia to continue our journey toward Corsica.

From Cagliari we started up the western coast of Sardinia by bus. Our first stop was Oristano, a pretty town with some nice squares. It was a little on the quiet side, so we only stayed for two days, though we loved the old palace where we stayed, and we spent a very pleasant day at the beach just outside town.

Then we bused further up the coast to the stunning town of Bosa. The town is so picturesque that I can’t stop taking photos. At every mealtime we seem to discover another impossibly lovely restaurant tucked into another little side street. And you can follow the river Temo on foot for a half hour to a picture-perfect beach. For us that makes a nearly perfect combination, and we’ve already extended our stay here from two to four nights.

Like so many of our recent Mediterranean destinations, Bosa is wrapped in many layers of history. Founded by Phoenicians in ancient times, it eventually became part of the Roman empire. In medieval times, it fell into the hands of the Malaspina family from Tuscany, who built the castle above the town and ruled the region for three centuries before it was taken over by the kingdom of Aragon. I can’t keep straight all the other permutations before Sardinia became part of unified Italy in the late 19th century.

After five days in beautiful, elite, expensive, magnificent Capri, we were actually looking forward to getting back to someplace ‘real’ again. So we ferried back to Naples and caught a flight to the Sardinian capital of Cagliari. And for a few days we got a great dose of the Sardinian version of ‘real’ — narrow streets colored by plenty of graffiti and laundry, sandy beaches with bright blue water, great stone walls dotted with palm trees and flowering jacarandas, and loads of fresh seafood. All of this is packed into a very pleasant city for strolling, people watching, and reading in the park.

We’ll spend 12 days altogether in Sardinia, probably traveling north along the western coast of the island — some of which we hope to do by bicycle. After that we’ll interrupt our island-hopping briefly to catch a flight to Rome so we can visit our friend Dara there. This wasn’t part of the plan until a few days ago, but if we can’t be spontaneous, who can?