cagliari : sardinia : italy

cagliari : sardinia : italy

by | Sep 19, 2022 | Italy, Travel

Cagliari is a city like no other Italian city we have visited. It’s a port city, and it wears its history on its sleeve. Everywhere you go you come across traces of its rich past, from ancient Roman ruins, to museums filled with prehistoric artefacts, to centuries-old churches and and elegant palazzi. It is located on the Bay of the Angels (Golfo degli Angeli) and, like Rome, it was built on seven hills, which identify the historic neighbourhoods of the city. The port area is busy, busy, busy – the main road runs along the sea front and cars and buses and vespas and motorbikes whizz past, so you need to be on your toes. Once on the city side though, it reveals itself as a beautifully elegant place, with imposing, honey coloured buildings, with elaborate balconies and shuttered windows, facing the sea. Wide tree-lined boulevards are packed with cafes and bars, and people catching up, eating, drinking and generally making life look pretty wonderful!

We stayed in an apartment, up the hill from the sea, but still “downtown”, on the beautiful Piazza Yenne. The piazza is bordered by bars and restaurants at ground level, and is lively. But, look up, and you see those beautiful buildings with balconies and railings and shutters. Our apartment was on the top floor of one of these buildings and have been exquisitely renovated – with sound-proofing, too, so we could shut out the noise when we wanted to. Piazza Yenne is the main meeting point for locals, especially during the hot summer nights. People gather here to have a chat before moving on; to sit in the terraces of the many cafes and bars, or simply, to passeggiata. Over the course of two visits to Cagliari we were there for four days in total, and so managed to get out and about and explore quite a lot of the whole city. It’s magical. It’s beautiful. It’s raw and feels real, the kind of city you could actually imagine living in.

You can either climb up to the upper town, or take a glass street elevator (at the top of Piazza Yenne) – whichever you prefer, just do it, because the upper part of town is even more beautiful and the views even more spectacular. It’s also not quite a crowded and busy, so you can feel a little more as if you have bits of the city to yourself, even in the height of summer.

 

 

capo testa : sardinia : italy

capo testa : sardinia : italy

by | Jul 29, 2017 | Italy, Travel

Capo Testa is located in northern Sardinia and is a wild and pretty remote part of the island. For thousands of years, the powerful wind over the Mediterranean has shaped Capo Testa, into an unreal world of lunar rock formations. Smoothed from the sea breeze, the huge, imposing rocks have been contorted into curious formations, almost as if they were formed by mythical giants, making this place a really mystifying sight and ensuring that it very popular with visitors, who also come to swim in the crystal clear waters.

As the closest Sardinian shore to Rome, the peninsula where Capo Testa is located, was at one point used for mining granite, by the Romans, who set up a small town around the mines, extracting large amounts of the stone for many of the buildings in the Italian capital. The caves where the stone was quarried were last used as a source of building materials in the early 20th century. The rocky, granite peninsula, which is attached to Sardinia’s mainland by an isthmus, is only about ten kilometers (6.2 miles) across. So, pull on a pair of sturdy shoes with a strong grip and hike around the eroded rocks to admire the formations smoothed and shaped by the wind. When you’re here you also realise how close you are Corsica, as the shoreline of the French island is clearly visible, even on a day like the one we visited, which was grey and at times, misty. In fact, this is how close we were…

Sardinia really is an island of stark contrasts, from the bustling and cosmopolitan city of Cagliari to the more sedate northern port town of Alghero. From the remote, deserted western beaches with huge sand dunes, to the glitz and glamour of the Costa Smerelda. And from beaches of golden sands, which stretch fro miles and slope gently into azure blue waters, to the other-wordly rocks of Capo Testa. The northern coast of Sardinia is like no other coast we have ever visited – and this was our first experience of this area…

The sheer scale and size of the rocks can be easily seen, above – look at the people clambering over the tops of the rocks!

Capo Testa is easy to get to by car, but be aware – parking is at a premium and you will get ticketed if you’re not obeying the parking rules. It can also be very cold if you’re out of season, as we were, as the wind does whip in from that strait, so make sure you have more than a T-shirt to wear. Also, and I can’t stress this enough – FOOTWEAR! Flip flops will not see you across those rocks – they can be slippery and they are riveted with cracks and dips and loose stones. Sturdy trainers, all the way. Or, as a lot of people were wearing – hiking boots.