Port 44 Cagliari, Sardinia

by Ed · April 8, 2022

After two rough days at sea, with waves easily 4 meters (12 to 15 feet – ship’s report) and occasionally approaching 6 meters (20 feet – my eyeballs), we made it to Cagliari, Sardinia on Apr 5th, 2022. True, we had three full sea days from Funchal to Cagliari, but the first day was pretty smooth. It was during our approach to the Strait of Gibralter and the full day after entering the Med that the seas were rough! There were a lot of seasick people, but fortunately, not us!

We passed the point that is south and west of the port of Cagliari. The site of Nora that I will visit is in the area on the left.

Our docking berth is buried on the back side of the harbor. We are prohibited from walking to the city. Shuttle buses run all day.

Joy and I have separate excursions today. Joy is touring the city highlights of Cagliari. I am touring the ancient ruins of the city of Nora. I’ll start with my tour first today. If you don’t like rocks, just scroll forward.

Sardinia had a miracle occur in 1993. Pink flamingos that used to just pass through began permanently nesting on the islands! There are salt flats here where the ocean water is dried out and the resulting salt deposits are collected. The salt pans have a bacteria that attract crabs that the flamingos love to eat. The bacteria makes the crabs pink. The crabs make the flamingo plumage pink. Hence, pink flamingos! There are thousands of them in the shallow waters we pass, but there aren’t concentrations of them we hoped to see to make entire ponds flush with pink plumage.

A little park has this lovely setting with a madonna and is clearly set up for gatherings, possibly church services!

We arrive at the archeological site of Nora. We had to leave the bus and walk about a quarter mile to the site. I’m very pleased to learn this is a UNESCO World Heritage Site now! It wasn’t listed in the tour description, but I thought it should have been!

We learn the archeologists who are working the site are from the Univeristy of Milan! This site is one of four Roman baths in Nora.

I’ll state this up front – This site has had quite the spectacular history! There were Phoenician settlers, followed by Romans, followed by various raiders, among them Vikings/Normans, and Muslims. Then taken over by the Spanish, and the Pisans (north Italy). Ottomans probably preceded the Phoenicians. I’m not going to claim to have a good working knowledge of this and certainly won’t be able to replay all of the details our extremely knowledgeable tour guide told us.

There are seagulls that nest on Sardinia, and are very abundant in this area. They are protected and safe in Nora, and are not afraid of people here.

Their presence is actually very interesting and picturesque!

At the southeastern-most point of Nora is this fort. This is actually a fort built in the 16th century when Sardinia was under Spanish control, and is named Torre di Cortellazzo (Tower of Cortellazzo). The sad part is the original 9th century Phoenician acropolis built at this location was totally destroyed to make way for this fort! Grrrr to progress, even 500 years ago!

Below the Torre di Cortallezzo is the site of the Roman forum. To the far side is the civil court location. Close to the camera is a temple. Of to the right is the senate building. The rough area in the middle is the open square where the orators spoke their peace, at very loud volumes according to our tour guide!

All around the Roman forum, the seagull gather to talk, but I’m certain it’s not about politics!

This is the view from the Roman senate building, looking back across the forum to the tower. More excavation is underway here, as attested to by the protective covers.

One of the best preserved sites in Nora is this temple. The god to whom this temple was dedicated is not known – no statue or indications remain. But two views are shown here.

A Roman theater was built here, dating back to 40 AD! It was thought to have had 20 rows of seats. You’ll only see 10 to 12 now. There are two tunnels, one on either side of the stage, for the actors to enter.

And on the back side of the theater are the steps to access the general seating areas!

On the other side of the theater is a large building that is not identified. But the floor’s mosaic tile is still in remarkable shape!

Next we visit one of the homes here. This was obviously one of the Beverly Hill mansions, an Imperial residence! The four columns are replicas of the originals now in a museum. They stand in the atrium of the house. Excavations show this house was built over the ruins of previous homes.

In the atrium, guests are greeted and a well is available in the center of the columns for fresh water to wash hands and perform other ritual ceremonies. The grate at the bottom of the photo is a cistern that collects rain water for general use.

Several rooms have beautiful tilework. This one has a special scene in the center showing a woman riding a sea serpent (sorry, I don’t have a good closeup of that scene). The amount and quality of tilework also indicates the wealth of the owner. There are rooms that are obviously bedrooms, while others are for guests. It is believed this home probably had a second floor!

Looking south we see the Temple of Aesculopius, or Aesclepius as we learned in Roman history, the god of medicine. This was a temple of snakes in which the believers and sick would come and sleep overnight with snakes crawling over them. The snakes were believed to bring healing to the sick, and therapeutic devotion to the believers!

This leads us to another of the Roman baths, perhaps the best preserved, and one that was attacked and burned in the 8th century AD. At that time the baths collapsed onto itself due to the fire. But the clearing and excavations revealed these baths incorporated public latrines since it was a source of flowing water! These gaps in the structure were the toilets.

Again, the structure was well preserved until its demise in the fire. But the beauty of the tilework remains visible to this day!

The Phoenicians were responsible for the original roads that run through Nora. However, they were fond of casbah layouts that did not have clean thoroughfares, unlike the Romans who liked to lay out their roads in clean grids. I am standing in the “crossroads” of four avenues that kind of meet here, and they do not cleanly intersect in a “cross”. This apparently frustrated the Romans, but they did nothing to correct the matter.

As we prepare to leave Nora, I snapped this one overarching shot of the majority of the eastern sidefrom the theater to the Temple of Aesculopius. It is a beautiful site, and if you have any interest in ancient history I highly recommend a visit here!

We returned to the bus and headed back to Cagliari. We were supposed to see a church there, but the bus stopped for a moment while our guide, Daniella, finished a story about the church, then the bus sped off! We didn’t get to get off to walk around and take photos. But Joy’s bus did, so I’ll show those in a moment and tell the story we heard!

Our last trip was to a panoramic viewpoint at the top of Mount Urpinu, called Belvedere. This lovely sculpture resides at the top! The water in the scene are some of the salt ponds.

We are told that, like Rome, Cagliari has seven hills. We can’t see them all from this overlook, so here are the few we can see!

This one is called “Devil’s Saddle”.

On the other side of the mountain is this view of the city of Cagliari. Our ship is partially visible to the far left between buildings. Joy’s tour was primarily in the Hill of the Castle at the top of the next hill in the distance.

A little closer look shows how clearly the Hill of the Castle is separated by the vertical faces. This was once the capital of Sardinia, but is now largely more of an archeological site. The capital was destroyed by the Pisans to build the hill top as it is now.

Let’s shift gears to Joy’s tour now. This is the church I spoke of earlier that my tour did not get to see – that is, my half of the bus did not get to see it.

The story we were told is this church was inhabited by the “white monks,” here to bring the Pope’s order to Sardinia. This church faces and sits a few hundred yards from the sea. A woman was on the steps of the church nursing her infant, when the infant turned to the mother and clearly spoke, saying, “Mother, you must hurry and get the monks. They must run down to the sea for something very important! Hurry! Run!” The mother did as her child said. The monks ran down to the sea in front of the church and found a crate that had washed ashore. They opened the crate and found a statue of the Virgin Mary, gilded in gold, and holding a candle that was still burning! This was a miracle brought to this church!

By the way, this city has an extensive electric bus system. That is what all of the wires are for in this picture.

On the left side of the stairway to the church we see a scupture of a ship tossed by the sea. This represents the source of the crate found on the shore.

On the right side of the stairs we see this figure of a woman and child. I am not sure if this is supposed to be the mother and child who encouraged the monks to find the crate, or if this is supposed to be the Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus. Given the crowns versus halos, my guess is these are supposed to be the former, the mother and baby.

On the way to the Hill of the Capitol, Joy found this lovely structure. This is the Bastione di St Remy, the elegant entrance to a cultural events center in the heart of Cagliari!

As they approached the Hill of the Capitol this tall edifice stared at them. We can see this from the ship on top of the hill. Now we can see it is clearly a work in progress. It is the Tower of San Pancrazio, identified as “temporarily closed!”

The backside looks like this. I’m particularly enamoured with the clouds in this image!

This leads them to the gate through the castle city wall called Port Arsenale. From here one can find the National Archeological Museum of Cagliari, just insde this gate.

Inside, this balcony rail signifies the Hill of the Capitol with watchtowers and crosses inside a fortified wall. Regardless of what it means, it is a beautifully designed balcony rail!

Joy’s group next went to this stately church, the Cathedral of Santa Maria Regina dei Sardi.

The interior is spectacular! Here is the ceiling, not quite Michaelangelo, but stunning nonetheless!

This is one church that is so over the top that, in my humble opinion, the main altar pales to the rest of the church! This is the main altar. What you aren’t seeing are the lions and gryphons at the bottom of the stairs guarding the sheep and other small animals. Crazy fabulous!

But better yet are the other stations around the cathedral!

And this one! Look at the elegant statues at the lower levels looking up, and ornate corbels holding up the columns! Then look at the top!

This looks like a scene out of Game of Thrones! But this must be Death with his scythe! I wonder what the story is behind the gap in the masonry next to Death?