Today we arrived at Cagliari, the capital of the island of Sardinia. The city is quite large with a population of 450,000 approximately. We boarded a bus and drove briefly through the city on our way out to the countryside and the ruins of the Roman city of Nora. Cagliari is busily preparing for tomorrow May 1st when the festival of their patron saint, San Esefio, begins. From what we saw of the city it looked fairly unremarkable.
We traveled out to the southwest corner of the island to Nora which was the site of the first Roman settlement in Sardinia. The city was built on a peninsula and has suffered from the ravages of the sea and wind and is totally in ruins. Many of the stones and bricks were stolen over the centuries and only recently did excavation and restoration begin. Our guide pointed out the areas which were the homes of patricians. These were identified by the elaborate mosaic floors of the structures, since only wealthy families could afford such decoration. One area of the site was a marketplace, while others were thermal baths and even a small amphitheater. In one of the patrician homes it was interesting to see a large amphora, used for storing grain, buried to its mouth in the middle of the house.
Our bus ride took us through farmland where we saw a lot of sheep grazing. Sardinia is famous for its pecorino cheese made from sheep’s milk. We also passed through a lot of olive groves. From the hill overlooking the city we were able to see one of the things that made Sardinia important in ancient times, the salt flats. Salt was mined there for shipment to the rest of the Roman Empire for food preservation.
It’s an interesting place and a relatively short touring day. That’s good because tomorrow we begin a series of long days as we visit Rome, Florence & Pisa, and Cinque Terre.
1 comment:
I was most interested in your article on Sardinia. You might be interested in my recent novel, Sardinian Silver, set in Sardinia in the 1960s, when it was a very different place (including the infamous "bandit" village of Orgosolo.) Incidentally, I think it would make a very good film.
**FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE**::
LITERARY FICTION ITALIAN CULTURE………………..CANADIAN LITERATURE
Finding One’s Self on a Romantic Island That Time Forgot
Sardinian Silver
How many young people have dreamt of self and sexual discovery in a far off, exotic place? Arthur Fraser, the main character of Sardinian Silver by A. Colin Wright, not only dreamt of it, he realized his dream. Recruited to represent a travel firm from his homeland of Great Britain, Arthur arrives in the resort town of Alghero on the Island of Sardinia in the Mediterranean Sea and is instantly bewitched. Based on his own time on Sardinia, Wright’s captivating and oftentimes hilarious novel follows the exploits of a young man trying to find love while assimilating to an archaically orthodox society.
Sardinian Silver opens with Arthur sailing across the Tyrrhenian Sea towards his new home. On his journey to Sardinia, Arthur meets a native Sardinian named Gavino. Eager to make a new friend, let alone a British one, Gavino strikes up a conversation with Arthur and quickly offers to show Arthur his island. Gavino is the first in a cavalcade of characters, serious, humorous and tragic, that help make Sardinian Silver the engaging recollection that it is.
Once settled into the Sardinian resort at which he is working, Arthur sets out on achieving the one thing he wants most; finding a Sardinian girlfriend. He knows that this will not be easy, as Gavino has already warned him. Sardinia in the 1960s was still very culturally undeveloped. Sardinia’s residents viewed mainland Italians and continentals (the British counted among them) as immoral and contaminated by modern society. Still, this does not dissuade Arthur from his task.
“It was ten past nine. Quickly the girls had gone.
Parties like this were so promising, yet so empty. I recall another one, with Gavino and some of Marcella’s friends, where one girl enjoyed a few hidden caresses while we clutched together publicly, but reacted scornfully when I attempted to get her outside alone, and the others were quite shocked. Except for Marcella, who made fun of me. Hug and hold tightly in a dance, but be satisfied with this brief, despairing feel of another body, for it’s all you’re going to get unless you pay a prostitute for more: southern Italy in a nutshell. Yet Sardinia was a land of promise, which I loved even if it remained unfulfilled.”
In the tradition of Brideshead Revisited and The Lost Girl, Sardinian Silver is a charming and witty novel of growth, loss and realization that is sure to delight even the most critical reader.
A. Colin Wright was born and raised in the county of Essex, England. After serving as a linguist in the British Royal Air Force, Wright attended Cambridge University where he earned undergraduate and graduate degrees. In 1964, he was appointed a professor of Russian at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. He remained at Queen’s until his retirement in 1999 and still resides there today. Dr. Wright is married and has two grown sons. See also www.sardiniansilver.com, www.acolinwright.ca and www.authorsden.com/acolinwright
Sardinian Silver can be ordered at any bookstore, or online at www.iuniverse.com or any Amazon site
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