Saturday, April 30, 2011
Another rainy day. We completely missed “sail-in”. The entire ship seems to be sleeping later and later. When we awoke we were docked in Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy. Our port research had us expecting a close position next to the terminal. The city is old and very hilly so we were hoping to save our energy for the uphill walk. Unfortunately, we were docked in the middle of the ferries, but with some good negotiating, the ship was able to provide shuttles to the terminal. We were in no hurry to leave the ship as we were “on our own” today and thought we might be able to wait out the rain. At 10:00, it still looked socked in so we grabbed umbrellas and jackets and caught a shuttle. There were city tour buses waiting to take us on a tour, but we elected to walk.
Our internet search had provided us with a good plan. It led us up a gradual slope to the area called “Castello” at the top of the hill. We stumbled onto a small church, Chiesa S. Agostino. It was built in 1577 and was decorated with wonderful old statues and remnants from ancient times. The church was filled with “piped in” Gregorian chants, but we swore the monks must have been in the next room. We definitely got the idea that this church was not on a list of typical tourist attractions.
We had heard that there was an elevator to take you from one city level to another. In the middle of our search we came upon a local market and we were the only tourists in the market. This market was environmentally friendly in that it required you to bring your own bags – no bags, no purchase.
We followed two elderly Italian women laden down with bags of produce and they led us to the elevator. The elevator took us to the base of the old walled city. The gate was very impressive and you wouldn’t want it slamming down on you. The views were incredible and we were impressed with how far we had come already. We could see The Gulf of Cagliari, also known as Angels Gulf. We walked around in this “upper city”, the older part of Cagliari. The views were great, but it was windy and wet. The streets had no side gutters, but they did have a row of cobbles running down the center to allow for rain run-off. We chuckled as umbrellas turned inside out – that is, until it happened to us.
We found the Duomo, per our travel instructions. It was massive and just filling for a funeral so we did not have much time to look around, but enough to be highly impressed with the size and grandeur of the church, Santa Maria. The entire railing surrounding the altar was covered in thousands of brightly colored flowers. It looked like a spring garden had been planted on top of the railing. We wondered if these flowers were from the Easter celebration, or were a part of the flowers for the funeral. The hearse was outside the church and was decorated with large floral arrangements.
As we walked around the upper city, we felt that we were in the middle of Italian life. There was nothing touristy about it, except for an occasional burst of laughter from touring school groups. Laundry was hanging from balconies, but this time it was covered in plastic to protect it from the rain – not a bad idea.
We walked carefully down the marble steps to the lower town and found a little café with pizza and gelato. The café was very quiet and had only locals as customers. No coffee gelato so Sardinia didn’t win the prize, however the tiramisu gelato was in the running. By the time we had finished with our lunch (early by Italian standards), the rain had quit and we enjoyed exploring the bustling lower town where we bought a bottle of wine.
We were back on board by 2 pm and spent the rest of the day trying to download the photos. The camera is giving us fits. We are keeping our fingers crossed that it will keep working for the next two ports. We still had trouble downloading the photos from Cagliari, but after two sessions of Chris’ techspert time, they are now downloaded, the memory card is reformatted and life is good.
Tomorrow is another sea day…
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