BATH, CINQUE TERRE AND SARDINIA DAY 7 – PISA TO SARDINIA

 

We roll our bags early to the Riomaggiore train station, just a downhill block from our front door.  The ride to La Spezia is just a few minutes, where we pick up our Fiat Panda from the car park under the station.  We have a noon flight out of Pisa, but we wanted to leave time to see that most famous of towers.  I grew up in New Jersey, eating regularly at proper New Jersey diners.  In a proper New Jersey diner, you will find printed paper place mats, and the place mats of my formative years featured illustrations of the Seven (Man Made) Wonders of the World.  My father and I would dream about one day seeing them all as we sipped coffee from thick white ceramic mugs and ate our short stacks.  So seeing this tribute to Italian mis-engineering today, the one so prominently featured right there in the middle of that syrup dripped doily, is kinda a big deal for me. 

(click on the pic to see the full size image)

For generations, the Leaning Tower of Pisa has been one of the most visited tourist attractions in Europe.  In the center of modern Pisa is the ancient walled city, the former capital of the Republic of Pisa, an economic powerhouse and Mediterranean trade center from the 11^th to 15^th century.  The tower lies in the Piazza del Duomo, one of the three structures in Cathedral Square just inside the ancient walls.  We’re early on a weekday and before the busy summer season, so there’s not many people here yet.  As we walk through the gate into the piazza, we are amazed at the beauty of the cathedral and the domed baptistry, perhaps the most beautiful churches we have ever seen.  At the far end of the plaza is the tower itself.  You can’t help but to smile and it’s hard to believe that it’s only about 4 degrees off kilter.  We want to take all the pictures from all the angles that millions have taken before us.  And we do.

Unfortunately, also for generations, the rap on Pisa was see the tower and split, in-out-done.  It’s the Italian Atlantic City – former greatness with all the makings to be great again, but down and out for so long it hard to believe that resurrection will ever happen.  Step outside the walls and its row after row of the tackiest souvenir stands, crappiest restaurants and generally uninspired everything else.  We hop in the car for the short drive to the airport and set off to the next destination.

The Ryanair flight to Cagliari, the southernmost airport in Sardina, only takes an hour.  We land and get the next rental car, the C3 being the first time I ever drive a Citroen.  In 15 minutes we make Castello House, our Airbnb home for the next 4 nights.  It’s a great location, at the top of the hill next to the iconic Bastion Saint Remy and a short walk to the city’s 4 most popular neighborhoods.  We drop our bags and head to lunch at the nearby Piazza Constituzione. 

Leaving lunch, we walk down to the marina, then through the Marina District, one of those popular hoods.  It’s like a lot of ancient Italian cities, but with more steps.  Somehow we’re always going up the steps, even when we’re heading down.

We have dinner reservations at a place about two miles but 30 minutes away and getting a cab is simply impossible.  Traffic is gridlocked and the streets are teaming with people because it’s festival night here in Cagliari.  I grew up in Hammonton, NJ, the home to the oldest Italian festival in the USA, the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Festival, which we all just refer to as “The Carnival”, now in it’s 149^th year.  It’s a week-long celebration with amusement rides, local vendors and some of the most delicious food stands you will ever get a sausage, pepper and onion sandwich from.  (Now you’d call it street food”, but this celebration predates that term by about a century and a quarter.)  The Carnival peaks every July 16^th with a procession by hundreds marchers pushing the statues of the saints in about a 2-1/2 mile loop through the streets of our little town past thousands of onlookers.  Growing up with that, I’m excited to be in Cagliari for the final night of the 368^th annual Saint Efisio festival, celebrating that deity’s freeing of the city from a terrible plague in 1652.  It’s orders of magnitudes bigger than what I’m used to.  The procession of over 5500 marchers in traditional Sardinian dress covers 65 kilometers in 4 days and has an estimated 150,000 spectators, most of whom seem to be in this very square tonight.