Cagliari

After a beautifully gentle sail out from the bay of Teulada, a stop in an idyllic bay with turquoise translucent waters ( we have a wee book on the bays in Sardinia, packed with fantastic looking waters, which we bought with some cynicism expecting the saturation to have been cranked up, but no, the water really was that blue, that clear!), we headed into the Bay of Cagliari with an eta of 17:00pm a good 3 hours before England’s game, or so I thought.

But no, within minutes we were battling a gusting force 6 on our nose which dropped our speed to make making the match no longer a certainty. I told David that the only way we might make it in time was to sail, and tack, which we proceeded to do, to arrive at 19:10! On then did David tell me that 20:00 was UK time, and we had an hour’s grace, cheeky bugger!!!

We stopped at a little family run marina on the east side of Cagliari, ever so friendly, but to call it “Marina California” is probably the best way to describe it. Showers etc on board were a must!

Over a pizza, and a carafe of the local vino, we watched the demise of England, at the hands of Suarez and Uruguay!

Cagliari is the capital of Sardegna, a somewhat sprawling town with lots of different areas, and character. Our pilot guide, printed in 2011 describes it as an elegant old town, but has recently been undergoing something of a makeover, with pedestrian access improving!  Hmmm, not sure we would agree with that, we have never seen so many buses, normal and tourist buses, drive round like maniacs through tiny streets and the old stone (and very narrow) gates of the old citadel, we should know, having taken one of those open topped city tours that was meant to last 1 hour but only took 40 minutes!!. Still we enjoyed the day exploring and we would recommend a stop here for anyone passing this way. As part of that 40 minutes, we were taken along a beach that is reputed to have up to 130k people on it daily at the height of the summer, but quite where they all would have parked is a mystery to me. We also saw an old prison that was converted into low end accommodation for the locals, but it did look like each old cell was a home, so god knows what the bathrooms were like, but they did have the most fantastic views of both city and the sea !

We also watched the Italy v Costa Rica match at a bar and to be honest, they took defeat better than we would have expected, given we always thought that Italian football was a matter of life and death.

We are sure there were many places we missed, but will let the pics below do the rest of the talking!

Cagliari, Capital of Sardinia

Views over the city

Salt lakes outside the city

“And suddenly there is Cagliari, a naked town rising steep, steep, golden-looking, piled naked to the sky from the plain at the head of the formless hollow bay. It is strange and rather wonderful, not a bit like Italy. The city piles up lofty and almost miniature, and makes me think of Jerusalem; without trees, without cover, rising rather bare and proud, remote as if back in history, like a town in a monkish, illuminated missal. One wonders how it ever got there. And it seems like Spain; or Malta; not Italy¨

D H Lawrence “Sea and Sardinia”