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Cagliari – Sardinia’s capital

Cagliari is located deep in the south of Sardinia, at the end of the Campidano lowlands directly at the gulf (Golfo di Cagliari).
Cagliari has everything it needs to be a European mega city. It is the administration seat, most significant centre of industry and commerce, university city and conurbation of the most important museums in Sardinia, which makes it to a political, economic and cultural centre, while all its important companies’ have at least one outpost.

Like many other cities, Cagliari has paid the cost for its wealth with a high immigration rate and ethnic conflicts. That is why Cagliari is not only considered a melting pot of Sardinian customs and cultures anymore, because the villagers of the island are attracted by the capital in the first place, it also became an exciting colourful meeting place of races and cultures due to its location at the southern coast facing Africa.

 

Cagliari has also been a destination for adventurers, refugees and persons in search of work, for a long time. If you consider the varying history of the city, you realize that the former Karalis (rocky city) with its exposed position at the sea, its sand bars, lagoons and chalk hills, was and still is a desired destination. Even though the industrial areas, with their focus on oil processing refineries and electric plants, are growing and the grey new-build districts are evermore dominating the metropolis, the wonderful historic city centre still shows the former greatness of bygone times with magnificent Palazzi, beautiful churches and contains ancient remains, of the Moorish, Iberian and Roman legacies, everywhere.

The reason for Cagliari’s impressive historic-cultural legacy, is its changeful history, which is a story of many conquests and long-time occupation, however, it also has a reputation of simply being the centre of a century-long foreign rule and not really being capital of the Sardinians. The inhabitants of Cagliari still fight for the proper recognition up to the present day, although the Sardinians have all the reasons to be proud of their capital, because Cagliari was formed from the Old Stone Age settlement that was established here at the river Mannu and belongs to one of the oldest establishments of Europe.

Some Phoenicians from Africa already built a stopover for their merchant fleets in the former Karalis in the 8th century before Christ. The Carthaginians also called “Punier followed them and were, at the end, banished by the Romans while they were conquering Cagliari in the year 238 before Christ. Then, Cagliari became the capital of the province under the rule of the Romans. However, peace did not come to the regions. Cagliari was attacked and looted several times by pirates and Saracens and even was captured by the Moorish for a short period. As a result, Cagliari was relocated to the interior in order to prevent this kind of brutality.
By that time, Cagliari was already split in four, so called, judicatories. Cagliari was named the capital of the, same-named, largest administration district (judicatory Cagliari) and had already gained the free city right in the year 1000.
In 1258, Cagliari belonged to the Pisanians, who built the castle, which stands over the city up to the present day and also constructed some of the most beautiful buildings. In 1324, the Spanish conquered Cagliari and finally it became the capital of Sardinia, but the dictatorial control of Aragón’s King Peter IV caused fierce but unsuccessful riots by the Sardinians, who tried to fight against the brutality and the cruel taxing pressure of the Spanish. Then, at last, Cagliari belonged to the Kingdom Savoyen-Piemont in 1720. As a result of this, Piedmont’s King Carlo Emanuele IV resided in Cagliari for some time and ordered the construction of several palatial buildings. Unfortunately, the bomb attacks in 1943 barely spared any of the buildings and architectural treasures, which were built under his building command.
Some houses in Cagliari could be reconstructed after the almost complete destruction; however many things were irrecoverably lost.
Then, in 1949, Cagliari became the seat of government of the autonomic region Sardinia.

This seat of government can be divided into an upper city, which is located at the hillside of the castle and a lower part, which spreads out to the gulf of Cagliari and is bounded by large-scale lagoons. Cagliari’s old town covers the four quarters Villanova, Stampace, Marina, the old harbour quarter, and the core of the historic centre, the old authority head office, the quarter Castello also called Casteddu by the inhabitants.

If you travel to Cagliari by ship, the first thing that will receive you is the Via Roma that is constantly piled up with cars. The city’s main shopping street connects the Piazza Matteotti and the Piazza Amendola, and it has a lot to offer such as numerous beautiful classical palaces of the 19th century. Beneath the promenade’s arcades, many cafés, bars and restaurants offer a nice chilly location and boutiques; grocers and street traders have their goods on sale. On the Via Roma, which is located directly at the intersection point to the “Largo Carlo Felice”, you can visit Sardinia’s biggest mall, the “La Rinascente, a place for all the customers keen to consume.

A tour to the Piazza Matteotti, with its Stazione Ferroviaria (central train station) and the Stazione Autoline (central bus station), is not the only reason for Cagliari’s visitors. A visit to the Palazzo del Municipo (town hall) from 1897, which has a white marble façade shining brightly over the palms and magnolias that are surrounding the palace, is extremely rewarding, too. In addition to the goblins and antique pictures, the town hall also shows the “Retablo dei Consiglieri” (16th century), a work of art of the probably most popular son of the city, the painter Pietro Cavaro.

At the other end of the Via Roma, you get to the Piazza Amendola with the most important banking houses and the province government in the Palazzo Consiglio Regionale. If you explore the area behind the Via Roma, you will arrive at the former fishing- and sailor quarter, the marina district, a quite famous living area. With its excellent taverns, antiquities- and handcraft shops, narrow and dim alleys, this city district, somehow, is the most attractive one with its inviting cosy atmosphere and its wide variety of culinary delicacies. Along the Via Sardegna, which leads through the whole marina district, the visitor has to make a well-conceived decision concerning the numerous trattoria and restaurants. Even though people primarily come here to eat out and sights to see are rather rare, you can still see some remarkable remains here that have witnessed the times of the past.
One of the latter is the Renaissance-church Chiesa Sant’Agostino that was constructed in 1580. The powerful central-plan building with the large dome arose on the ruins of a Roman thermal bath of which you can see the remains inside the church. The Chiesa Sant’Eulalia with its adjoining Museo del Tesaro di Sant’Eulalia also is extremely worth seeing. Inside the Museo, archaeological finds, old church scripts, silver work of the 16th and 17th century, oil lamps and wooden statues from the 17th and 18th century are displayed.
The district’s two nice promenades are the Boulevard Largo Carlo Felice and the Via Manno that leads you to the Piazza Yenne and its statue of King Carlo Felice.
A chilled ending can be looked upon to by visiting a marina district with a cappuccino in Cagliari’s most traditional bar, the Caffè Genovese at the Piazza Costituzione.
Here, the city’s districts Marina, Villanova and Castello meet each other.

You can also get to the Castello quarter by crossing the Piazza Yenne and through the Torre dell’Elefante. The quarter is simply called the Su Casteddu by Cagliari’s inhabitants. The 35 metres high tower (Torre dell’Elefante) that was built between 1305 and 1307 by the Pisanians is made of chalkstone. It was a fortified tower and part of the Pisanian city wall, and it has its name from one the small elephant statues on one of its corbels. The old aristocrat quarter, residency of the spiritual and temporal sirs and centre of the municipal life to the 19th century, is still separated from the other quarters of the old town by the castle including fortified towers and the Pisanian fortress, up to the present day. By the times of the Aragonian rule, the Sardian population was only permitted to stay in this quarter in the daytime, at night the rule was simple, without exception, “Foras los sards!” (Sardians out).
Today, most of the pride of place and the discrimination against the poor got lost, to the contrary, many old and sick people, families that have many children and are socially deprived are now living in these Patrician houses for some decades. Even though there have been recent efforts to push on the old city restoration, the Castello’s decay can be seen and felt everywhere.

At the end of the hill, on which the castle is located, the Piemontesians built the Bastione de Saint Remy, with its wide perron leading to the Terrazza Umberto I, in a classical style on the Spanish protective walls, in 1720. On this well arranged terrace with a beautiful outlook, numerous benches under shadowing palm trees, Cagliari’s inhabitants and, of course, visitors meet in order to enjoy the amazing view over the old city and the lagoon lakes around Cagliari to the Golfo degli Angeli, all this during the sunset.

At the Piazza Palazzo, which is surrounded by the palatial Patrician palaces, you can also see the cathedral, Cattedrale Santa Maria di Castello, with richly decorated, white gleaming marble facade. This example of architecture was built in a Pisanian style between the 12th and 13th century and witnessed several rearrangements and redevelopments in the following centuries. Quite remarkable is, how everything was made in the Baroque style in the 17th century.
In the inside, the cathedral retains a painting collection in addition to the silver tabernacle that was made in form of a Renaissance church. The painting collection contains, amongst others, “Christ’s flagellation” by Guido Reni and the triptych “Retablo della Crocifissione” (1535) by Gerad Davi and the cathedral treasure, consisting of chalices, amphorae and silver crosses, which are displayed in the Museo Capitolare. In addition to the mausoleum of Martin II of Aragonia, the cathedral moreover contains about 300 burial chambers, including the rulers’ graves of Savoyen, underneath the crypt’s Baroque vault.
The cathedral’s actual highlight, however, is without a doubt the marble pulpit of Guglielmo that was made in the years 1159 – 1162 and is originally displayed in Pisa’s cathedral.

Directly next to the cathedral you see the King’s palace “Palazzo Regio”, once the residency of the Spanish and Piemontian vice kings and nowadays seat of the prefecture. The old town hall “Palazzo di Citta” is also located on the Piazza Palazzo.

On the highest spot of the old town, the Piazza Arsenale, Cagliari’s biggest culture attraction also is to be found, the museum complex with the country’s most important treasures of art and culture.
This complex covers the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, the national pinakothek, the museum for Siamesian art as well as the wax museum.
The latter, presents more than 20 anatomy models, which were made by the Florentine wax artist Clemente Susini by royal order in the early 19th century.
The Museo Siamese S. Cardu dedicates itself to the Far Eastern artists of the 11th – 19th century, where you can even look at oriental weapons as well as objects of utility from China and Thailand.
The pinakothek knows how to impress with the largest collection of Catalanian (table) paintings of the 15th and 16th century from outside of Spain, works from the “School of Stampace”, the so-called Sardian Renaissance, oil paintings, (table) paintings and Sardian goldsmith works. The “Retablo di San Cristoforo”, which, quite impressively, displays the crossing scene in six parts, has to be particularly mentioned among the "Retables" of the 15th and 16th century.

The indisputable crescendo of every visit to the museum’s citadel, however, is the Museo Archeologico Nazionale. Besides the archaeological museum in Sassari, it contains prehistoric finds of the Nuraghians, from the Phoenician Punian era as well as Sardinia’s most remarkable archaeological collection from the Roman time. However, the quite expressive, 5-20 centimetres small brazen figures from Nuraghian graves, which allegorise tribal chiefs, warriors, priests, farmers, animals and ships and the earthenware jars from the 4th millennium before Christ are outstanding gems of the exhibition. Not less special is the so-called “Nora-stele”, which has a Phoenician inscription from the 9th century before Christ that is the so far oldest acquainted naming of Sardinia.

The oldest signs of Cagliari’s town history are to be found in the Stampace district that can be reached from the museum’s citadel by passing through the Porta Regina Maria Christina. In addition to the numerous burial chambers from the 7th to 3rd century before Christ. In the Punian-Roman necropolis Tuvixeddu, the Grotta della Vipera, the Roman rock tomb of Atilia Pomptilla a bit underneath the necropolis, is part of the oldest proofs of the town’s history.
The Roman’s most remarkable and biggest legacy on Sardinia, is the Roman amphitheatre from the 2nd century before Christ, which had a 20,000-spectator capacity and today the Anfiteatro Romano still is the antique scenery for operas, theatre plays and pop concerts.

Underneath the amphitheatre, the Orto Botanico (botanic garden) spreads on a, in 1866, laid out space of 5 hectares, in which exotic trees and far more than 500 types of tropical plants from Far East, South America or Australia as well as many grottos and the remains of Roman tunnel constructions can be visited in addition to domestic plants. From the park, you can get to the relics of the Casa di Tegello, a roman mansion from the 2nd century before Christ, in which the Sardian poet and singer, Tegello, once lived.

Not far from the botanic garden the visitors are welcomed by the Baroque church San Michele (17th century) with a large number of beautiful mouldings and a luxuriously adorned high altar and the Baroque church Chiesa Sant’Anna (18th century) that was reconstructed according to the original blue prints after almost complete destruction in WWII.

Not as beautiful as the latter, but for Cagliari’s inhabitants and, moreover, for entire Sardinia a lot more meaningful is the Chiesa di Sant’Efisio, which contains the statue of the holy Efisio in its plain interior. Every year, Sardinia’s biggest festival is being celebrated from the 1st – 4th May with a procession from Cagliari to Pula at the coast, a lot folklore, culinary delicacies as well as a huge fire work ending, in order to honour this martyr who was executed by the Romans.

The fourth district of the old town, Villanova, is especially characterized by its numerous offices and office buildings, even though Sardinia’s oldest church is located here, the Chiesa San Saturno. In addition, a Roman-Byzantine basilica from the 5th to 6th century after Christ, which is better known as “San Saturnino” to the inhabitants and the monastery complex “Santuario di Bonaria” from the 14th century, can be visited here.
The complex covers the monastery including cloister, a Baroque basilica and the pilgrimage church from the years 1323/1324. The latter, is the island’s probably most important pilgrimage site. Inside the church, the statue of the Virgin Mary, from Bonaria, is located, which was washed ashore in the 14th century inside a wooden box and since then had miraculous effects. People say, they owe it to the statue that Cagliari avoided a pest epidemic. Every year on 24th March, a ritual procession is held to honour the Virgin Mary that was canonized by Pope Pius IX and declared as a patron saint by Pope Pius X.
In the famous monastery’s realm of shades, the monastery San Domenico is located, which is still considered Sardinia’s oldest Gothic building that was restored, after the war, noting every little detail.

Townspeople in search of relaxation and tourists tired of visitations have an excellent place with Cagliari’s popular recreational area nearby with its two long beaches Poetto and Quartu Sant’Elena with many restaurants, beach bars and clubs. On the other hand, they can go on bird excursions in the surroundings of the lagoons “Stagno di Santa Gilla” and “Stagno di Molentargius”, which are breeding- and resting places for numerous water birds, sea ravens, egrets and flamingos.




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Titel dieser Seite: Cagliari – Sardinia’s capital
Zusammenfassung dieser Seite: Cagliari is located deep in the south of Sardinia, at the end of the Campidano lowlands directly at the gulf (Golfo di Cagliari). Cagliari has everything it needs to be a European mega city. It is the administration seat, most significant centre of industry and commerce, university city and conurbation of the most important museums in Sardinia, which makes it to a political, economic and cultural centre, while all its important companies’ have at least one outpost.

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