Visits on the way to Cagliari

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13 May 2011

We progressed gently southward today to Sardinia’s capital, Cagliari, calling in at a few interesting places on route.

From our overnight car park stop we could see a perfect conical hill with a ruined castle on top of it. This turned out to be the twelfth century Castello di Marmilla (La Marmilla is the area we were in) close to the village of Las Plassas and we were able to walk up to the castle along a paved path overgrown with a myriad of wild flowers.

From there we went to the highest point in La Marmilla to see another extensive Nuraghic site, Genna Maria. This turned out not to be too interesting but the views over the surrounding country were terrific.

Over lunchtime we walked around San Sperate. This village was the birthplace of Pinuccio Sciola who is Sardinia’s best known contemporary sculptor and there are open-air examples of his work all over the place. There are also numerous interesting murals on every street painted by local artists. We had a really enjoyable couple of hours here being surprised by every corner we turned.

Finally we went to the small town of Uta, to see the 12th century Chiesa di Santa Maria, considered to be the lovliest Romanesque church in southern Sardinia.

We are staying on a camper park very close to the centre of Cagliari.

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