Cagliari

Last time I wrote we were in Cagliari in Sardinia, where we ultimately stayed for nine days, partly I think due to cruising fatigue.  We have been experiencing so much this summer that from time to time we just need to stop and let it all sink in.  Also, this life is quite physically demanding, especially as we have been spending a lot of our time at anchor rather than in marinas and there are times when we need to physically rest up.  Cagliari is an undemanding sort of town and refreshingly multicultural.  Along the harbour front there is a colonnaded walkway with several cafes, a popular spot for the evening passagiata when the locals stroll around their town and sit in the cafes chewing the fat with old friends or flerting.  One hot afternoon sat in one of the cafes we watched three of the local drunks.  They were at the “you’re my best mate you are” stage, but beginning to edge into “just who the fuck do you think you are?”  One of them had an old ladies shopping trolley and a cat on a lead.  The cat lay quietly on the pavement while the drunks screamed at each other like friends who had suddenly bumped into each other after twenty years.  Being the only sober one in the company it tried to maintain a studied “I’m not really with these people” indifference.  Suddenly, as if remembering that the cat had a very important appointment for which it must not be late, the drunk with the trolley picked up the cat and carefully put it inside, made his excuses and walked off.  The cat pushed its head out of the trolley bag and began to regally study the passers by as the ensemble disappeared into the distance.

Much of our time in Cagliari was spent strolling round the old town, a dark and mysterious place crammed onto a rocky promontory and bound by the city walls.  Near the summit of the old town is the Sardinian Archaeological Museum, where we learned a little more about the Nhuragic civilisation peculiar to the island in the bronze and iron ages.  The trademark of the civilisation was tall round towers, distinctive in design and found nowhere else in the Mediterranean.  The museum has a large collection of Nhuragic bronze figures, mainly pocket size, like childrens’ toys.  The figures are extraordinarily modern and life-like, although some are seven thousand years old.  There are archers, beggars, priests and street entertainers, some showing real touches of pathos or humour and providing, for me at least, one of those rare moments when you feel you can reach across the centuries and almost touch the hand of Ancient Man.