2019- Italy – Sardinia- Cagliari – Stop Over inside the Old City Walls

Cagliari Stopover

It’s nearly time for us to leave Sardinia but before we fly out of Cagliari International, we have 24 hours to explore the Old City. As the capital and a major port, Cagliari sits midway on the south coast of Sardinia and it’s medieval hilltop Castello with the 13th century Cathedral Santa Maria is our first real glimpse of Sardinian modern history.

In the context of history in Sardinia, we have seen plenty of evidence of Nuraghe ie 1500BC and Iron Age man at work, but not much more modern ie Medieval onwards, so Cagliari is a great find.

We drove to Cagliari across Sardinia from Olbia in the north-east, and followed Google Maps to our AirBNB destination, within the Old City Walls. In fact without Google Maps and folding rental car wing mirrors – see road access pic below – we would not have found our destination. But once there, we tucked the hire car into the gateway of our rather quirky “ love nest” accommodation and set off to seek supper and an initial explore of the medieval Castello.

Immediately from our accommodation and still within the city walls, we find paved streets of apartments, neat restaurants / pizzerias/ bars and shops. Cagliari may have a great history but it’s a living, breathing, working city too and all the more interesting for that.

Cagliari City Views

We have a bit of a fascination for the often superb architecture and decoration of the churches, cathedrals and monuments we come across in our travels and Cagliari is no different. Visiting church premises on this years trip we have encountered a number of weddings and a few funerals, plus ordinary religious services. At Cagliari’s Santa Maria Cathedral our initial arrival coincided with a funeral being conducted, which was a good excuse for a coffee and marmalade croissant stop, before resuming our visit to the Cathedral.

Being set upon a series of hills, the Cagliari Castello has a number of Towers to be visited too, there is a bit of walking up and down, except when you can come across the wonderful glass Ascensore Communale – public lifts!!

Cagliari gave us a bit of the same great positive feeling that we had when visiting Oporto last year. Both have stunning locations, great histories but huge challenges post the GFC, that they are progressively finding resource to resolve. So we find buildings beautifully refurbished, some with work well underway and others – well projects for the future!!

We had just 24 hours in Cagliari, had intended more but EasyJet cancelled our flight and put us on one a day earlier. In truth we could have easily had say three days exploring the city and it’s surrounds. We separately visited Nebida to the west, and en route had seen Costa Del Rey which is about an hours drive to the east of Cagliari, both great tourist draw cards.
Tourism is a huge deal for all of Sardinia, but in Cagliari we finally found the living, breathing and working historical heart of Sardinia, and it was great fun.

But it’s time to shut up the shop, stack away the chairs, draw down the curtain and head home, until next Northern Summer!!