in the heart of Castello
our apartment is located in a 13° century building, inside the medieval area of "Castello", overlooking the main old lane of the fortified town.
It is known as the "five heads palais" because of the five roman marble heads above the main door; dans le 17° century the killers of the Marquis of Camarassa employed it to fly away after have killed the Spanish Vicerè;
in the 18° century it was propoerty, with all the building, of the Count Giovanni Battista Viale.
"Castello" is the medieval area of Cagliari town, all narrow lanes, museums, churches, and wonderful wonderful views from the white Bastioni.
Pisani towers, restaurants, the Cathedral, the Santa Chiara market...and, on the nr. seven bus, you can easily reach the lower town and the other bus stops, leading to the sandy Poetto beach and the rocky SantElia beach...leading to the main coaches and trains station, and to the harbour
Nora archaelogical area
at 40 km from Cagliari, easy reachable by coach.
The ancient city of Nora is positioned on the furthest point of Cape Pula, in front of Pula town, surrounded by the sea, connected to the mainland by a tiny isthmus. Thanks to the ancient traders Nora was developed into an unique and important point for the entire Sardinia isle.
The name of the city is derived from the root word “nur” the same as that wich has been used for the ancient prehistorical Sardinian sites, the “Nuraghi” towers.
In fact, many megalithic stones were discovered at Cape Pula and were later utilized for the Nora city’s buildings.
Nora’s story began during the early 8th century B.C., when the Phoenicians, sailors and traders from the Mediterranean, decided to use that site as one of their first strongholds on the Sardinia island as confirmed by the most famous and ancient written document ever discovered in the Mediterranean, the “Stele” of Nora.
Around the 6thcentury B.C. the Punics, inhabitants of Cartage city, located in the North African coast (now, Tunisia) were seen for the first time around the coast of Nora. It was during that period that the city of Nora really began to take shape: sacred buildings on the higher slopes and around the foot-hills, the residential and commercial districts, an extremely large number of water and storage tanks. It is from that moment on that Nora really became an important reference point for the commercial traders crossing the Mediterranean.
However, it was during the Roman period, from the 227 B.C. year, that Nora reached the peak of its expansion and development. Some of the original Punic buildings were destroyed or modernized by the Romans.
During the 1st century ad, Nora officially became a roman Municipium, and lot of monumental buildings were erected, most of them still visible today: the Forum, the teathre, four thermal baths, temples, huge mansions and villas, the insulae, the aqueductus and, last but not least, the amphitheatre, wich unfortunately has been destroyed.
During the 5th century a.c. started the Nora decline, the Mediterranean coastlines became dangerous and Nora, as the other coast cities of Sardinia, became prey of the devastating strength of Vandals then, during the 8th century a.c., the Saracens violently attacked burning the city almost to the ground, forcing the remaining inhabitants to flee towards the inland areas, where they gave birth to the new village of Pula.
The defense tower on the peak of Coltellazzo was built during 1595 from Spanishes, as part of the Sardinian coast protection program.