Sardinia : Live like a Local

Live like a Local

Archive for Cagliari

Cagliari : Eat, Sleep, Discover

September 14, 2008 at 2:44 pm · Filed under Cagliari and tagged:

Island bastion with the essence of Italy: Cagliari

The Sardinian capital is perfect for a short break in the Med, says Francisca Kellett.

Why go?

Italy’s glitterati have long flocked to Sardinia’s beautiful coastline, but flights introduced this summer have given the island’s capital a new lease of life.

Cagliari encompasses everything you’d hope for in an elegant Italian town: a medieval core of tightly packed churches and townhouses, a well-kept Roman amphitheatre, fine restaurants, a beach within striking distance of the centre and well-heeled locals who turn out every evening for a traditional passeggiata.

The journey

EasyJet (0905 821 0905, www.easyjet.com) has daily flights from Luton to Cagliari from £41 return, including tax. Airport buses run every hour to Piazza Matteotti, on the waterfront, and cost 2 euro. A taxi will cost about £12.

The hotels

(Prices are for a double room, b&b, based on two sharing.)

£122 Hotel Mediterraneo, Lungomare Colombo 46 (00 39 070 342361, www.hotelmediterraneo.net).
A modern, uninspiring exterior holds a typically Italian four-star, awash with marble and dark wood, a 10-minute walk to the old centre.

£60 Hotel Italia, Via Sardegna 31 (00 39 070 660410 ).
Retro riot in the centre of the Marina, although there isn’t a breath of irony about the mushroom-shaped lamps, brown carpeting and bucket seats. The blessedly simple rooms are good value.

From£30 Boutique Bed and Breakfasts www.go-sardinia.com
Stylish and great value for money

The restaurants

£35 Dal Corsaro, Viale Regina Margherita 28 (00 39 070 664318 ).
With a family-based clientele, Cagliari’s smartest restaurant is surprisingly relaxed. A highlight: the delicate, hand-made, lemon-filled tortellini.

£17 Lu Lilicu, Via Sardegna 78 (00 39 070 652970 ).
The best of a dozen good little trattorias in the Marina. The food is typically Sardinian – try bottarga (spaghetti with grated tuna roe) or porcetto (suckling pig). Must book.

£12 Antico Caffe dal 1855, Piazza Costituzione (00 39 070 658206 ).
Sit on the terrace overlooking the busy piazza, or at the marble-topped tables under a vaulted butter-yellow ceiling. The pace is frenetic, but its history – it dates from 1855 – and a long menu of salads, pasta and daily specials draw lunchtime queues.

The big night out

Join the passeggiata along Via Giuseppe Manno to Piazza Yenne, stopping for an ice cream (100-plus flavours) at Isola del Gelato. After dinner, go to Piazza Yenne to people-watch from Forum Café’s outdoor tables.

From midnight, the young and glamorous head east to Poetto beach’s bars and nightclubs, such as the long-running Lido (Viale Poetto 41). Alternatively, the Roman amphitheatre, west of the Castello, hosts open-air concerts during summer.

The classic sight

Of all Sardinia’s inhabitants and invaders, the native Nuraghic people have left the most indelible mark.

Dominating the interior from the Bronze Age until around 600BC, they left the landscape littered with mysterious stone towers and bronze figurines.

A fine collection of the latter is in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale (entrance £3.40 with entrance to the Pinacoteca Nazionale gallery, next door).

The alternative sight

At weekends the city decamps to Poetto beach, a vast stretch of grey-white sand, much of it given over to lidos, where you can rent an umbrella for £3. Two blocks west, over the highway, is a string of lakes, host to flocks of flamingos.

The walk

From the Piazza Martin d’Italia, climb the steep street through Lion’s Gate to the medieval Castello district, enclosed by ivory-coloured fortifications.

A broad terrace, home to a Sunday flea market, has views over the city and sea. A stiff walk north leads to Piazza Palazzo, framed by crumbling townhouses, the pistachio-coloured Palazzo Viceregio and the cathedral.

For £1.40, you can climb the pockmarked Torre di San Pancrazio, a soaring Pisan watchtower built in 1305. The old arsenal holds the archaeology and art museum. Strike east for the Roman amphitheatre, or turn back and launch into a bewildering warren of old streets winding down the hill. Keep heading right, and come out at Torre dell’Elefante, the other Pisan watchtower. South is Piazza Yenne, leading to the Marina area, wedged between the Castello hill and the waterfront, and packed with churches and restaurants.

The shops

£24 buys a midnight-blue pottery vase at Claudio Brai’s ramshackle shop/studio in the Castello area (Claudio Brai, Via Lamarmora 37).

£9 buys a thick wedge of pecorino, a ewe’s-milk cheese with a sharp, Parmesan-type flavour (Sapori di Sardegna, Vico dei Mille 1).

£3.50 buys a box of traditional almond biscuits made by the jovial, sugar-dusted Maurizia Pala (Durke, Via Napoli 66).

The guidebook

The Rough Guide to Sardinia (£12.99).

What’s on when

The island’s biggest festival honours its patron saint, Sant’Efisio. A huge, four-day procession begins in the city centre on May 1, with floats and carts heading out to the Roman site of Nora. Further information from the Italian State Tourist Board (00800 00482542, www.enit.it).

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Sardinian Cuisine in Cagliari

July 25, 2008 at 4:31 am · Filed under Food and tagged: ,

The Sardinian capital is famous for its delicious local dishes: delicious malloreddus-a typical Sardinian pasta made from semolina wheat, eggs, water and salt and seasoned with a good tomato sauce with sausage and fresh pecorino. You should also try the delicious culurgiones, another type of pasta stuffed with potato, mint and pecorino, then seasoned with a delicate sauce with basil.

Among the main courses, which are also exceptional, we must mention Su Porcheddu, the typical suckling pig, loved by locals and tourists alike. Sardinians love meat!! Make sure you try the lamb stews seasoned with a delicious sauce made from chopped dried tomatoes, garlic and olive oil. The Cordula with peas is a fantastic dish: is none other than the lamb’s intestine in olive oil with garlic and parsley and then cooked in a pot with water and peas.

Sardinian Desserts: pardulas, small cakes stuffed with fresh ricotta, or bianchittus,  meringues, cakes very light derived from simple ingredients such as almonds, sugar and egg white. 

For digestive purposes!! immediately after the meal, you should order a Mirto, the Sardinian drink of choice made from Myrtle berries.

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Cagliari – The Castello District

July 24, 2008 at 4:42 am · Filed under Cagliari, Places in Sardinia and tagged:

Castello  is certainly the most important historical area of Cagliari and is surrounded by ancient ramparts, Pisan towers and contains some of Cagliari’s most important buildings, museums and churches . Here you will find the beautiful Church of Santa Maria del Monte, built in 1591 and the former barracks of the Piedmontese from the eighteenth century. Other sites include  Church of the Holy Cross, built in 1661 and one of the most beautiful architectural gems of the city, dell’Elefante Tower, erected in 1307. From Castello you also get spectacular views of the city, including the lagoon of Santa Gilla and the mountains of Sulcis. .

Entry to Castello is through ancient fortified towers built when the Pisans were in power.The ancient portal is still intact . A little later will meet the Porta dei Leoni, which marks the transition from the district of Castello to that ofMarina, near the port is the wonderful Terrace Umberto I, or bastion of St. Remy, built from the beginning of the twentieth century and considered as a sort of entrance to the beautiful panoramic terrace. Proceeding further, it comes to Independence Square, irregular shape, where are the National Museum and the Tower of S. Pancrazio.

The Tower of San Pancrazio, the first tower of Pisa erected in Cagliari, was designed byJohn Capulas, and was built in 1305. Near the tower is also the ancient palace of Siziate (Seat of the Sardinian Parliament). In Independence Square you can admire a particularly interesting palace that was home to the National Archaeological Museum from 1908 to 1993. Once exceeded the arcades of the museum, access to Piazza Arsenale, topped by the aforementioned Torre di San Pancrazio, on your right you can see the Porta de S’Avanzada, beyond which you can enter into Viale Regina Elena. Beyond the door dell’Arsenale will become available also to the famous Citadel of Museums, a large conglomerate urban designed by the architects Cecchini and Gazzola in 1984. The latter is home to some of the most famous universities, such as the National Archaeological Museum, the National Art Gallery, the collection of Anatomiche Wax Museum and Eastern Europe.

From Independence Square, via Martini leads to the vast Palace Square, so called because of the presence of the Palace of Government or Royal Palace, built in 1769.The square is rectangular, slightly tilted and is dominated by the Cathedral of Santa Maria, one of the most important monuments in Sardinia. The Cathedral was built between 1274 and 1300 but its structure was amended in Baroque style in 1674 by the architects and P. D. Spotorno Fossati. Its facade was rebuilt in 1933 and its Romanesque portals are still the ancient fragments of the original XIV secolo.L ‘internal Church is full of ornaments, marble and a large number of paintings. In the transepts are also two Gothic chapels built in 1300, in the left transept is a poliptico the sixteenth century, produced by M. Cavaro, while the right is the triptych of Clement III, representing Christ and Santa Margherita. In the left transept, you can also admire the mausoleum of the young Martino, an Aragonese prince who died in Cagliari in 1409. 
The most important artistic masterpieces inside the facade of the Church. There are two pulpits designed by the maestro William and constructed in 1159. Originally they were constructed for the Cathedral of Pisa, but later were donated to the city of Cagliari. William created several sculptures in the pulpits, some of which depict the life of Christ, and four wonderful lions in the Romanesque style that decorate the staircase. Under the presbytery you can visit the original crypt, which is divided into three chapels and is adorned by thousands of different tiles. 

Once left the Palace Square, is the City Palace, built in the eighteenth century, which was used as the City Hall for  two centuries. Today it hosts the ‘municipal historical archive, . On the left of the building are also the small Gothic Church Of Hope, the Way Fossario and the near Terrace Umberto I. A short distance from the terrace leads to  Buoncammino, i

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Cagliari- The Stampace District

July 23, 2008 at 4:48 am · Filed under Cagliari, Places in Sardinia and tagged:

S.Efiso in Stampace
S.Efisio Celebrations in Stampace

The district Stampace extends westward from the Largo Carlo Felice. At one time, the area was a real residential area where noble families lived . If you take the characteristic Via Azuni, you can visit two large churches S. Annaand S. Michele. 

The Church of St. Anna was built between 1785 and 1817, It is typical Baroque-Piedmont style and was restructured as a result of major bombings in 1943. Leaving from the side of the church, is the hypogeum of S. Restituta, a rock that keeps track of attendance from Roman until 1943-44, years during which it was used as a refuge.

At the end of Via Azuni stands the important Jesuit church of St. Michele,built during the seventeenth century. It ‘a wonderful example of baroque style, with its polychrome marble, stucco, canvases and painted wooden statues, all distributed between classroom and sacristies. The church is also formed by large porches in front and an interesting pulpit of the sixteenth century, while its original architectural structure was fundamentally characterized by a central plan shaped dome with ornaments and polychrome marbles on altars, columns and even on the pavement .The sacristy is particularly valuable, decorated with beautiful designs Colombino and Altomonte.

On the right of the church you can see a monumental door, topped by the Tower of Pisa S. Michele, built in 1293. 

A little further up the hill is the easily distinguishable neoclassical building of ‘Civil Hospital, designed by Piedmont Cima. It ‘a particularly interesting building with an orderly distribution of internal lanes through a radial corridors.

Proceeding along Via S. Efisio, a fairly steep staircase leads to an underground chamber, the prison of S. Efisio, the martyr and patron saint of Cagliari. Further up Via Sant Efisio  is Church of St. Efisio, built in Baroque style, within which is also venerated statue of the saint. On the first of May each year, this is the starting point for the colourful and evocative celebration of S. Efisio the saint of Cagliari in which his statue is carried to Nora, the place of his martyrdom, in memory of liberation from the terrible plague of 1652 -56.

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Cagliari – The capital of Sardinia

July 22, 2008 at 3:14 pm · Filed under Cagliari and tagged:

cagliari sunset

“The town of Cagliari offers to the view of those arriving from the sea an aspect pleasant and mighty, despite the white-yellowish colour of the limestone rock, and a kind of African aridity that gives it a particular character..”

(Alberto Della Marmora, Itinerary of the Island of Sardinia, 1860)

The Sardinian capital is divided into different neighbourhoods old and new  (164,249 inhabitants) is the largest city of Sardinia. About one thirdof the total one and a half million inhabitants on the Island live in its outskirts and in the communalities within its province. Cagliari is Located at the southernmost tip of the Campidano plain, at the centre of the namesake gulf and featuring important wetlands both in the east and in the west, Cagliari spreads along the coast and on its nine limestone hills. Some of these are of significant landscape and naturalistic value, such as Mount Urpinu (the hill of San Michele with its mediaeval castle) and the promontory of Capo Sant’Elia

To the east, you can visit the fantastic harbour known as Marina Piccola, located a short distance from the famous beach Poetto, in turn dominated by an imposing rock, the devils saddle Cagliari also has another small port,: Su Siccu, located almost opposite the Basilica of Bonaria the church the city of Buenos Aires is named after. 

The historic centre is the most interesting part of the city in particular  the famous fortified districtof Castello, the castle) lies on top of a hill with a wonderful view of the Gulf of Cagliari . Most of its city walls are intact, and feature the two 13th century white lime-stone towers, St. Pancras Tower and the Elephant Tower. The local white lime-stone was also used to build the walls of the city and many buildings. D. H. Lawrence, in his lively memoir of a voyage to Sardinia, Sea and Sardinia, undertaken in January 1921, described the effect of the warm Mediterranean sun-light on the white lime-stone city and compared Cagliari to a “white Jerusalem”. 

The other early districts of the town (Marina, Stampace, Villanova) retain much of their original appeal and still seem to function as distinct villages within the town.

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