Today we docked at Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy at around 8:00 AM. We went down to the Grand Pacific for breakfast before we met Helga and Dennis near the atrium at 8:30 AM. We got off the ship very quickly and took a complimentary shuttle a short drive away to near the main street of the city.
It is a lovely ship.
Fun graphics everywhere.Off the shuttle in the town.It is nice looking for a crummy day threatening rain.
When we got off the shuttle, we saw a van similar to a hop on hop off and we all decided to take it as it was beginning to rain and we didn’t want to be out in the weather. The shuttle was eight Euro each, and if we had to do it over again we would not pay. The walk wasn’t that bad but it would have been uphill. We figure we could have taken the local city bus up to the top.
We decided to stay in the van and go around the loop again before we got off. We couldn’t see much due to the fogged up windows and the rain. Also, the windows on the van were so low, you had to scoot way down in your seat to see anything. The second loop, we got out at the top near the bastion and church.
We got out of the van and were glad. We were near the top of a hill.Interesting curves, rocks, bricks, mortar and walls.Pretty scenes as we wandered to the museum.Helga capturing the city.
It was a spectacular view.
Looks like rain headed our way, again.
We also got to see several museums – the archaeological museum, the modern art museum (which wasn’t so modern), and a couple of others. The cost was seven Euro for both museums and the others were free. While walking down the hill, we got to see a free art exhibition and see a Jewish area of the city. Quite fascinating.
This museum was completed in 2014.Ionic capital.Roman bath tub.These are still being made and used today.The human need for art is ancient.Tools and weapons. One day our guns will be obsolete and on display in a museum.The best of all the ruins end up, appropriately, in a museum.I believe the stands are of modern design. All the frescoes and storage show the jugs leaned against a wall.There weren’t many English explanations for what we were looking at.Egyptian.
I’d buy one today.Snake rings, ear rings too.
Agamemnon comes to mind.
I see dogs, cows, pigs…Coin of the realm.Nice way to display the coins.I saw a floor like this in the Vatican.Lots of mosaic.Woman candle stick holders and oil lamps.Noses gone usually means Christians at work.Pretty woman and grumpy with…ahh…I’m not sure.I admire the artistry of the restorer that makes the shell to glue the found pieces to and reveal the whole shape of what had to have been.Handsome and stylish. You can see the soot around the spout of the oil lamps.Edie and I both liked this.Another museum we didn’t have a ticket for.On the way up to another.
We stopped at a restroom for Edie and Helga and were challenged and surprised. The lights didn’t work, so with the door closed it was pitch black. Might be workable sometimes, but the set up was so different, Edie had me hold the door partially open for her as she used the bathroom. Helga had Dennis did the same.
This is the toilet, almost brand new, ordered out of a catalog, of recent manufacture. Edie asked how it worked. I told her to put her back to the wall while standing on the two foot pads. Drop her pants and underwear, squat down and empty her bladder. The button on the middle of the wall flushed the toilet. The water flowed forcefully out of the spout and rinsed everything but the foot pads clean. Construction completed in 2014. No lingering on the toilet here!Edie’s penchant.We think crypt covers.
Since Istanbul, I have such an appreciation for the difficulty and detail of carpet weaving.I slow way down to look and appreciate now.We also took in an art museum which was entirely religions works, mostly massive.
Dennis and Helga headed down another level.
We headed out and started making our way down the hill towards the port. We could see the ship and knew we had plenty of time to walk and enjoy the city and couldn’t really get lost.
It is a very cold and rainy day, but we managed okay.Just pretty.Pleasing to the eye.Really get a sense of the age of the place.
Very strange to us.Our destination on the outside.I really like the streets. Cobble stones, river rock, blocks. All done by hand and very aesthetically pleasing.Like the curves and straights. Hard to mix the two.
The curves are so handsome with the straight lines.I really like the gutter created in the center.Gives new meaning to “crumbling infrastructure.”
It looked like it was going to pour down rain so we decided just to slow it down and find a place to eat. We found a cute little place that was open called “Su Tzilleri ‘e su Doge.” It was wonderful. The chef was so fun. He brought out flat bread that was warm from the oven. We drizzled olive oil and then some salt, delicious. Then he brought out a more traditional and toasted bread. Everything we ordered was amazing. I was the boring one and had a Nonna salad (olives, cheese, tomatoes, greens, eggs); Michael had a pasta dish that was so fresh and wonderful. It had pasta, tomato sauce, Parmesan cheese, and a soft poached egg, where the yolk formed part of the dressing. Helga and Dennis had a variety of dishes, some kind of salad dish with octopus and cuttlefish, a meat dish with a variety of thinly sliced processed meats, and a clam soup. These two are great adventurers, not just in travel, but in food as well.
Our restaurant.
Our chef. He was excellent. If you are ever in this neighborhood and want a treat…this is the place.I felt like I was way up a hill on an Italian island at a place only the locals really knew about.Extra virgin olive oil at each table.Happy people.Helga’s daughter-in-law has a set just like this. I liked it immediately.I liked it in large part because it was so heavy, which is exactly why Edie didn’t care for it.I can almost picture the fellow heading into the hills and harvesting this wood to make his ceiling, a couple hundred years ago.The flat bread was fantastic, the loaf bread was great too – both were piping hot. We had olive oil, and salt to pour on the breads.Dennis and Helga, who I suspect survived for a time on a deserted island, eating whatever they could find, enjoyed a heaping plate of cucumbers, cuttlefish and octopus.Fresh hand made pasta, a marinara sauce, freshly grated Parmesan and a barely poached egg, the yolk of which makes part of the sauce. Very delicious. About as adventurous as I get.I almost got a gout attack just looking at their hot flat bread platter of meats.They polished off their meal with a hot bowl of swimming things, shelled things and clams in a soup. They said it was all delicious and I believed them.Edie’s salad.I love the old headers to keep doorways safe.Dennis and Helga, wonderful travelers. Great fun to hang out with and go with to explore foreign lands.
We ended up walking down the street quite a ways more.
So artistic.Dennis plotting our course down.
Fake columns on the side of this building with ionic capitals on top.The gate.The defender’s interior gate.The defenders exterior gate.Feels right to the period.A nicer gate.A Toyota not for the US. But I like it.
The craftsmanship is artistic.
Lost glory.Dennis explaining the door within the door.Graffiti seems so wrong here. We certainly have it in the US as well. I wish now I’d been harder on the taggers I came across working in the prisons.You really watch your step here.
Grumpy taking too many pictures.
It was a fun walk and when we got to the bottom we saw lots of street vendors selling things. Helga and Dennis went their way to enjoy their time, and we went ours. We ended up getting Aaron a watch. We got Lexi a cute little purse. We’re still not sure what to get Arla but we’ll figure it out before we get back to America.
Almost down.Art in the park.The biggest sago palm I have ever seen.
Edie politely looked at whatever they were trying to sell.
I loved the craftsmanship on this door.I like it, but how the heck does the steering work?
We got back to the ship around 3:00 PM and immediately took a nap.
We met Helga and Dennis at the Alizar for dinner at 5:30 PM. We were hoping to get seated in Jesus’ area but we were told he didn’t come to work until 6:30 PM. We were seated and the service was pretty bad. We prefer the Grand Pacific for service and space. Tonight was the first time we had been asked by the main men in the restaurant how things were. We were asked three times. (Could it be because this leg of the cruise is coming to an end soon?)
Caesar salad.Not sure what Dennis had.My Chicken Caesar salad.Edie’s green with ranch.Dennis had steak, again.Edie had curried chicken and enjoyed it.Missed what Helga’s delicious dinner was, she was fearless. Dennis too.I whined, but my stuffed chicken breast was excellent.Peach cobbler for Edie’s dessert.I think Dennis had a pecan pie.I had an excellent chocolate mouse with cherry jello on the bottom.
We all left dinner and went to the show. Tonight’s show was Dorota and Roberto – the acrobats that do the Cirque du Soleil style things. We enjoyed them as much the second time as we did the first. Great show and one of our favorites. After the show we headed back to our room to sleep but for some reason ended up staying up and watching “Guardians of the Galaxy.” Pretty hokey movie, but fun.
