Cagliari

Cagliari, not only sea…

A landscape of stones and sea, of ponds and islands. That is Cagliari’s business card, gathered around the limestone white rocks and the blue sea, with its houses looking out on the cliffs and the bright shade of Salinas just behind the beach.

The main town is located in the most inner part of the Gulf of Angels and it stretches along the entire area over the sea, the ponds of Molentàrgius and Santa Gilla – that border it on the Eastern side – and a few steep limestone hills. In ancient times, the fortifications that were built to protect the town overlooked those hills. The hill of the castle “Su casteddu” is one of the best, making this site very characteristic. And “Su casteddu” is the utmost ancient heartbeat of the town, the cultural core of routes that mainly move towards the Cittadella of museums where the best collections of art are based among which the National Archaeological Museum that must be mentioned since it shows the history of the region from the Nuragic period featured and it is featured by the small bronze stuff and the National Art Gallery too, a combination of the native figurative art and the art taking inspiration from the Catalan-Aragon style.

On the other hand, at the bottom of the castle, a number of typical Roman expressions stand out, from the peculiar Viper Cave – excavated in the rock with two snakes carved in the fronton and in the huge amphitheatre with the terraces leaning against the hill. Not far from there, there’s a temple where a collective ritual is officiated every day, the one of cookery: in San Benedetto, the biggest covered market in Italy on around eight thousand square metres: the spirit of a place can be found in its soil and you must taste its fruits in order to sense it and breathe the mix of colours, perfumes and flavours. Considering shopping, but not food, the destination is the castle’s area where a number of very interesting antique dealers can be found that can be visited after having a look at the Cathedral of Saint Mary – and the very close capitulary museum featuring a precious golden monstrance dating back to 1818 – after seeing the town from the fortress of Saint Remy, a panoramic viewpoint featuring a very peculiar shape. From these architectural choreographies you can go towards the cost – just for kilometres – to the coastal area of Poetto – the beach of local people – behind that the amazing pond of Molentàrgius stretches along more than five hundred hectares in this wonderful corner of Sardinia.

You won’t miss the chance to explore its secrets and get to know its inhabitants: the pink flamingos, pilgrim hawks, the white Garzetta bird... It is another world, where life goes trough amidst hidden recalls and sudden flights, where Spring is pink thanks to the show of thousand of flamingos that gather on its edges to nest before your eyes. A curiosity: until a few years ago, the Molentàrgius area featured also the old salt mine, already known by the Phoenician civilization.

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