24th July - Cagliari

High Point: 1. Leaving Malfatano we’d intended to go all the way to Cagliari, but slowed by a headwind as we approach Cape Pula, we opt to drop anchor in the lee of the point instead. What luck! If we’d gone on, we’d have missed a real highlight. When Leighton scanned the shore through the binoculars, he saw what he took to be ruins of some kind, so we rowed ashore to investigate. It turns out to be the remains of the Punic and Roman settlement of Nora. We found a forum, a small amphitheatre, a temple, mosaic floors – the works. What a treat - to be on land after several days confined onboard, and to stumble upon an archeological site of such interest.
2. Leighton’s personal high point was driving the marina’s battered Fiat Panda alla mille miglia through the streets of Cagliari to the Carrefour hypermarket and back.

Low Point: Cagliari in high summer is a hot and dusty place, the air hanging heavy with pollution from the refineries on the outskirts of the city. There’s the constant noise of traffic and jets landing at the airport. The cabin temperature reaches the mid 30s by the afternoon, and the supermarket is a tiringly long walk away.

After exploring Nora and enjoying a pizza lunch, we anchor off the beach in the bay next door for better shelter from the sea breeze, and spend the night there. We catch the same sea breeze to take us into Marina del Sole in Cagliari the next afternoon, where Alan and Ann are already berthed. Our friends Chris and Jenny had overwintered their boat here one year and warned us the place was a bit rough and ready. How true! The pontoons are flimsy; the showers are housed in a tent on decking built over the water’s edge and the office is a shambles of paperwork in one corner of the makeshift bar. Never mind, it isn’t expensive and we need to be in the city for access to the internet to reconnect with the family.

We reject the idea of sightseeing in the old city because of the heat in favour of a trip inland – anywhere just to see some of the countryside. We decide to take the bus to the town of Muravera on the E coast about 55 kilometres from the city. We choose it for the simple reason that the road goes through a range of mountains, and we want to see what the highland interior of the island is like.

Leaving the city behind, we pass first through a farming landscape - fields of ripening oats; smallholdings hedged around with prickly pear; vineyards; orchards of olive and groves of eucalyptus trees – fuel for the countless wood-fired pizza ovens in Cagliari. Then we start to climb and it gets a little cooler. The mountain slopes are deep green with the foliage of holm oak, juniper and wild fig. For a while the road winds along the side of the mountain as it follows the course of a river far below. Here and there at the bottom of the rocky gorge, splashes of pink flowering oleander can be seen. Then we descend to the coast, the bus braking hard on the bends until we reach Muravera. Actually we’ve already gone through the town before we realise it, so we get off at the next town instead and have a leisurely lunch in a homely little restaurant where the town’s tradespeople are eating before catching the bus back again.