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Spring must have sprung in Cagliari because we’re finding ourselves moving around like French mimes in order to stay in the shade. It’s all about perspective of course, but in the sun, the two of us would crisp on the surface while being blue-rare in the middle. At a cool 27 degrees Celsius in the shade we bake much more evenly. What better pastime, then, than to seek out a number of historical buildings as these tend to be built with two-foot-plus thick stone walls and serve as cool refuges during the warmer climes. The locals are still wearing down jackets and vests, though. Again, it’s all about perspective.

In order to make sure we got the most from our brief stay here in Cagliari, Meredith had devised a walking route through some of the more interesting sites which she promptly entered into a custom Google map overlay that she shared so as to keep the mid-pedestrian-street debates as to what is where to a minimum. While I’m not going to recount where we went, I can say that we did stumble upon a church that was not listed among the main attractions that we could see, but that we were drawn into by the open door and the sound of the rehearsing organ grinder. The interior of what seemed a perfectly octagonal church were interesting but conventional; however what made it stand out was the crypt. Where other churches and cathedrals have crypts that are ornate to the point you could justifiably call them ostentatious, this one was much more sinister and therefore more interesting with dark drapes painted on the walls, skull and cross-bone ornaments and, get this, a fresco of death himself, sickle and all, painted on the ceiling. One shudders at the thought of the hellish rituals performed down in this dark, dank space. Weddings maybe even…

Beyond the brief brush with morbidity, Cagliari left me with two impressions for which both I am immensely grateful:

First: Especially during our travels through Puglia, I had started getting concerned for the well-being of the Italian markets. Like the mom-and-pop shops pretty much everywhere, markets were giving way to malls and mega-grocers. The only people we’d see at the increasingly spartan markets would be a smattering of ultra-seniors, like the wind-shipped, knotted and hunched-over yet stoutly uncowed birches at the sub-alpine treeline, these folks embodied that sense of tradition; they will be shopping at the markets until they or the markets were no longer there. Cagliari changed that impression for the better. Mercato Communale di San Benedetto is basically a two-story city block (a rather inexact metric in Italy, I grant you that) of fresh food goodness. Meredith details this market in more detail but suffice to say, it was refreshingly excellent and what’s even better, busy with people of all ages keeping commerce alive. For this, I thank you Cagliari.

Second: As I’ve already pointed out, islands have their own rhythm, culture and sometimes very distinct history. We found this with Sardinia just as much as we did with Sicily. While Sicily, in my amateur and all to brief assessment, is at ease with its many contributing historical events and how they have shaped their rather multi-faceted identity, Sardinia seems to have an innate patriotism that is, in my view, substantially more fierce. They have their own language, no doubt influenced by the years of Catalan rule and when visiting a palace in which government business was conducted, the trinity of identity was clear: They are Sardinians first, Italian second and Europeans (a distant?) third. Local patriotism is certainly not new and by no means limited to Sardinia and it’s certainly not always positive. This absence of cultural blandness however does make for very interesting travel and for that I’m thankful.

We’ve now left the island of Sardinia but just as we pledged when we put Sicily in the rear-view mirror; we will be back.

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A less-than cheerful reminder perhaps that you ignore death at your peril. 

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