World Cruise Day 75/152 - Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy - It's not pronounced like it's spelled

Cruise day: 75/152

Ports days: 25
Sea days: 50
Countries: 11
Continents: 4
Ports: 18

Sunrise over Cagliari

 Welcome to Italy!  Well, not so much the mainland, but rather the Italian island of Sardinia.

We are docked in Cagliari, the capital city of Sardinia.  Today's excursion had us up *way* too early as we had to be on the dock at 7:35AM.  The sun was out and shining, and that was good as it was 40-degrees Fahrenheit with a slight breeze.  We're Floridians and don't like cold!  We were both sporting our heated vests and the spiffy jacket Viking provided to us World Cruisers.  Arlona powered up her vest at one point, but the vest itself was warm enough for me.

Off we went, touring Cagliari.  Let's talk about Cagliari for a moment.  Look at it. C-a-g-l-i-a-r-i.  I assumed it was pronounced Cag-lee-AR-ee.  But, our tour guide kept saying something that sounded to my decidedly American ears like Calgary.  I finally asked her to pronounce it sloooowly for me and I explained why.  She smiled (or at least she seemed to be behind her mask), and explained that there is a "yi" type of sound in Italian that doesn't exist in English, hence the difference.  The correct pronunciation is KAAL-yr-ee with the emphasis on the first syllable.  Say it fast and it does almost sound like Calgary.  I don't think I'll be mastering Italian anytime soon.

We drove up to the top of the hilly area of the city for a view on both sides.

They used to evaporate seawater to produce salt here.  It is no longer economically feasible but the shallow ponds still exist with interesting inhabitants - you'll see a little farther down. 

A wind farm in the distance

St. Francis, facing east

Arlona, doing her best St. Francis pose

We drove back down and got a closer look at the old salt ponds.  Who lives there now?  Flamingos!  In Italy! In the Med!  In March!  Who knew?

Next, we drove by, but couldn't stop at the Bonaria sanctuary, a lovely old church.

We stopped again for more panoramic views of Cagliari.

The ruins of an old Roman amphitheater that is being restored

Hey - I can see our ship!

I can see our room from here!

There it is!

The city is divided into districts.  We drove by and then walked into the fortified district of Castello.

One of the entry/exit gates and the one we entered through

One of two towers that were used to guard the city

Interestingly, the interior structure of the defensive towers was constructed of wood, not limestone like the walls.  This was done so that if the tower was going to be compromised, they could burn the interior and prevent the invaders from coming up.

Here, you can see the indent known as the devil's saddle at the top of the hill - they say that the devil and the archangel Michael battled here, and when the devil was knocked off his horse, the horse turned into limestone as soon as he hit the water - the saddle is still visible, hence the devil's saddle

Our next stop, still within the Castello district, was the Cathedral of Santa Maria di Castello.

The ceiling was impressive

Like other churches we've seen in Europe, there is a crypt in the lower level.

We exited the district through another gate near a second tower.  This one was called the elephant tower.  Why they put a carving of an elephant on it is a mystery.

This has the same wooden internal structure as the other tower

We continued to the marina district where we walked through some retail areas.  Italy is a little COVID-crazy right now.  While Viking is allowing us to explore on our own, Italy is not.  This is true despite the fact that we have zero COVID cases on the ship. Italy is forcing us to remain in a bubble, restricted to managed tours and zero self-exploration.  It sucks, but if we want to visit Italy, we have no choice.  We're hoping they get a little saner before our next Italian ports several weeks from now.

The Sardinian, Italian, and European Union flags

Cured ham, anyone?

 

Back on the ship, Chef Thomas prepared octopus.  And yes, this is a real octopus.  And no, we didn't have any.

We did touch it - it was cold, soft, and spongy

We read this and opted for the fresh pasta.

Shaving the truffles

We had the chef add some garlic and parmesan cheese - Perfetto!

Dessert featured some amazing cannolis!

Hand included for size reference!

Back onboard time was 2:30PM today for an early sailing.  They moved trivia to 3:30PM and we once again came in just out of the points.  Today's category was music and everything revolved around 15 different songs with two questions per song.  Sometimes it was title and artist.  Other questions included naming the singer's home country, what do the artist's album names all have in common, what movie was the song used in, and so on.  Out of a possible 30, we scored 24 - respectable, but worthless.  It was still fun.

When we left trivia, the ship was rocking - literally.  We checked the speed and Captain Olav had the pedal to the metal as we were pushing 18 knots or about 21 miles per hour.  We can go a little faster, but not much.

The internet has improved as it occasionally works.  It almost seems usable.  Then, it quits.  It's pretty frustrating, but at least the periods of outage are now peppered with times where it works.  Baby steps.

We enjoyed a nice dinner and two hours of conversation again tonight in the World Cafe.  Life is good.

We're still rocking and rolling on our way to Valletta, Malta.  We will be there Wednesday & Thursday.