When my mother and I had planned to come to this city of Caglari, I sent a message to a slight acquaintance of mine asking her about her city and what one could do, and she had little to suggest. Similar looks at tours offered around the city offered little help as well, as most of the tourist infrastructure of the city is based around the sea and cruise ships rather than passengers who fly into the city. This sort of travel approach can make some people think that there is nothing to see in a city, but these people would be very mistaken. After all, even a cursory look at Cagliari’s wikipedia page or reading about the history of Sardinia will give you an understanding of the importance of the city. The city has long been the political and economic capital of Sardinia, and has historical archives as well as a gorgeous seafront and history going back more than 2500 years ago.

When we arrived in Cagliari, our perception of the town was not particularly friendly. Our flight arrived a little after 9PM in the city, by no means a very late time, but even then the town seemed like everything was closed on our taxi drive to our hotel. When we arrived at our hotel, we were hungry so we walked a bit to a nearby steakhouse, and the streets were dark and menacing, the wrong kind of still, until we approached the restaurant, where we found a lively scene full of friendly people, and a good kind of vibe. Admittedly, the walk back was a hike up the hilly and narrow one-way roads that seemed like dark alleys. When we saw the city in the daylight, the city was warm and inviting, with muted but warm colors on the buildings and streets that were full of people walking around, and even a thrift shop where my mother was able to do some shopping near the hotel.

But even among the people there was a stark contrast. Older people with sour faces walked up the streets. Young people alone or in couples walked around in smiles. Middle-aged working adults, professional petit bourgeoisie, my own kind, quickly walked or ran in a professional fashion, going about to competently do their business. And all of this is exactly as one would expect. Cagliari is perhaps the wealthiest of the larger towns and cities of Sardinia besides being the center of business and politics for the autonomous region that the island is formed of, and though the city itself is only slightly more than 120,000 people or so, the region it is a part of is considerably more populous than that, formed among many neighboring communities that seem long on business and short on older buildings, considering most of the area appears to have been wrecked pretty heavily in World War II.

Apparently once upon a time the city was surpassingly beautiful. D.H. Lawrence had some rapturous words to say about the city’s beauty when he approached it, without a hint of the massive concrete apartments that one finds in much of the city these days. While it was indeed necessary that the world rebuilt after the horrors of World War II, much of that rebuilding was not the most beautiful in nature, and a great deal was lost in terms of beauty and charm among the collectivist mentality that filled much of the world and either built the same sorts of houses in mass developments in the United States or massive apartments in Europe with dreary monotony. At the very least, the color palette looks attractive here in the day, even if far less so at night. Who knows what contrasts await if someone spent more time here and looked at it with an even closer eye than my own?