Mor Toad / Moy Toad

Cagliari

Mor Toad / Moy Toad

David and Jocelyn Fawcett

Thu 18 May 2017 09:16

The crew left last Friday having had a brief look round Cagliari which is a large busy town but full of narrow streets wending their way up the hill. On the waterfront there is a 6 lane road between the pedestrian boulevard and harbour and the town - not that wide but it takes nerve of steel to cross as although there are plenty of zebra crossings very few traffic lights so you just have to stand or even start across the road and hope to goodness they stop - which they do or so far have but all very last minute. 2 of the 4 lanes are for buses /trolley buses and taxis . There are some elegant old buildings and Palm trees but modern monstrosities too a place of faded elegance and as you walk into the back streets you wonder how some of the building stay upright as look pretty ropey. Apparently Cagliari was bombed heavily during the Second World War.

We spent two days after the crew left exploring the city - the botanical gardens, walked past the Roman amphitheatre , the old area around castle, cathedral, lots of churches, the excellent archaeological museum ( the day we went it was 'open house' weekend in Cagliari free admission and lots of children and teenagers all in white and red t shirts from the age of 5 upwards waiting to explain in English what the various exhibits were . Impressive their command of the language ( puts us to shame)? in fact we spoke to one of the teachers and it turns out that some of them were from an international school here in Cagliari which is part private and she was of Sardinian extraction born and educated in the UK But now back here teaching. Most of the exhibits were from the Iron/Bronze age including some lovely little bronze figures called brosetti and some large carved figures of men which had been found by a farmer 40 years ago. I'll come back to explain in next episode

Another day we walked miles along the water front away from the main town to find the area where there are salt pans and flamingoes- a good walk , few flamingoes at a distance - what we hadn't appreciated was the extent of these salt marshes and really one need to hire bikes to cycle around and then we would have got a better view. We then walked back into town through innumerable streets to the back of the old town and found a pedestrian lift ( not so sure I could have climbed the hill as desperate for some lunch and we'd run out of water) which took you up onto a terrace near the cathedral giving great views of the surrounding area and the mountains surrounding the flat area of Cagliari. Very welcome lunch was found In a little square below the cathedral and again served by a delightful waitress who believe it or not yesterday 5 days later recognised us and said Bongiorno in the supermarket near the marina.

As we were ' Cagliaried out' and we still had a few days here in the marina until the next crew arrived we decided to hire a car and explore a little bit of Sardinia. The guide book says you need a month to explore the whole of Sardinia and with the roads I can see why but we'll return to that.

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