Saturday, May 23, 2015
Ciao on a lovely Saturday evening in Villa del Piero,
Sardinia!
Finally catching up on the blog was indeed a lovely feeling
last night. I just wish I could figure
out the best way to keep the photos in order when there are more photos than
words. It’s tricky, and I haven’t quite
figured it out – but hopefully that will come with time.
We were up this morning about 6-ish, and awoke to a lovely,
sunny day. The wind had died down
somewhat, but we understand that a form of the “mistral” wind blows fairly
regularly here west to east on the island.
We have experienced it before – my worst memory of it when we were in
Avignon in the wintertime, with the wind coming across the Mediterranean, and
wow, talk about really cold wind…at any rate, it certainly keeps the air nice
and clear. Some Caltech business had
come in during the night, so R needed to get some work done. That was fine with me, as I was able to take
my “morning nap” on the comfy couch here in the living room after breakfast. Finally, R was done, and we were off and
touring about 9:30 a.m.
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View from the top of Monte Sirai
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Town of Sirai
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Very old drainage canal
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Our plan for today was to see two sights, Monte Sirai and
the Temple of Antas, both north west of us on the island, about 25 km or so
apart.
We decided that as we first
needed to head back to Cagliari to pick up an east-west road that we would
rendezvous near the airport to find out where to get gas on Monday
morning.
One thing that we have heard is
that it is possible that NONE of the gas stations may be open on Sunday – and
as we have to return the car EARLY (6 a.m.) on Monday, we weren’t sure what if
anything would be open by then.
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Talk about a strong wind pattern!
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Me at door of a house
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As it
turns out, many of the gas stations have gone to “24-hour self-service” and we
wanted to be sure that our credit card with the chip in it would work.
So, we turned into a station fairly near to
the airport – but, surprise!
They only
turn on their self-service machine when they’re actually closed, so no way to
test it.
Hmmm…but R was able to use his
credit card to buy gas there, so we’re hopeful.
Our strategy is that we’re going to fill up
the car tomorrow (Sunday) as best we can – hopefully using the card.
Otherwise, we may just have to rely on our
landlady Tina to give us a hand, and we’d pay her back in cash.
So…always something exciting when traveling!
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Punic tomb in necropolis
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Another tomb
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Can you see the symbol for "Tanit" on the post?
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Temple of Antas
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R inside temple
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So, the ride to the airport should take about half-an-hour
we estimate. We then had to find out way
out of the small little towns around Cagliari to the correct route north west,
which took some doing. Emmy was having a
difficult time, so Robert was having to guide us “the old fashioned way” – with
a map. All in all, we finally made it to
the right road and off we were. As it’s
Saturday today, I was thinking that the roads would probably be packed, with
everyone sightseeing or going to the beach.
But the road Robert found was practically deserted, and it was
wonderful! We made great progress, and
were soon climbing up to Monte Sirai.
Originally founded by the Phoenicians around 750 b.c., this community
and necropolis (cemetery) were strategically sited on a high plateau commanding
views of territory all around. As most
of the settlements on Sardinia, it passed from the Phoenicians to the
Carthaginians and finally to the Romans.
In the Punic area, starting in the 6th century, the Punic practice
was to construct very large underground chambered tombs. What is interesting here is that the people
practiced both inhumation (burial of the body) as well as cremation, in an
unusual display of mixed funerary rites.
The views from the top were wonderful, all the way down to the coast and
the sea. And, with the exception of two
gardeners who were working on the site, we had the place entirely to
ourselves! And this is a Saturday at the
end of May! I have to admit that the wind
was blowing so hard that I was wearing my jacket, more to shelter my head and
ears than anything else. R, being the
tough guy, of course goes without a jacket.
After a good look around, we got back into the car to head
to the Temple of Antas.
First of all, it
was truly quite a ride up and into the mountains.
This area had once been a big mining area, (initially,
for the Carthaginians and Romans, and then in later years, Mussolini decided in
the 1930’s that Italy needed to be truly self-sufficient and actually founded
the town of “Carbonia” to mine the coal.
Apparently, however, it was a very poor grade of coal, and proved
eventually to be too expensive to mine for what it was worth…so much for grand
ideas!) and there were tailings and mine elevators
leading down into the now closed shafts.
(I’m hoping that R will correct my sentence
structure when he does his proof-reading…)
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Another nuraghe to add to our list!
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Looking at temple from nuraghe house
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But the mountains were beautiful, and the roads VERY curvy,
and we eventually made it to the Temple.
And here, there were actually other people!! Wow!
There was what looked like an Italian hiking club having lunch in front
of the visitor center, and there were several individual sets of people – one
in a car with Austrian plates, and a German pair on a motorcycle. However, when we got to the actual Temple
site, we of course had it to ourselves.
This particular temple was originally a nuraghic site taken over by the
Carthaginians about 500 b.c. After them
came the Romans, under the Emperor Augustus, rebuilding the temple to their own
gods. It must be said about the Romans,
that in all their conquering all over the world, their practice was to
assimilate the gods of the local people in with their own extensive
pantheon. This was very good planning,
and it went a long way toward placating the local tribes. After the temple, we walked over to their
excavated nuraghic village, which was dated 13th – 10th
century b.c.
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| Heading to dinner and "ran" into a Marathon in Pula! |
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| Me and Tina! Dinner tomorrow! |
By this time it was about 2:45 p.m. so we decided we had had
enough sights for one day, and headed back.
Got here about 3:45 p.m. R worked
on Caltech business and I took a nap!
Lovely and rested now, and we’re taking Tina out to dinner with us
tonight! So more later!
m
xxx
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