Cagliari audiotours

D.H. Lawrence came to Cagliari in January 1921 and called it a white Jerusalem because of the way its limestone Castello district rises above the sea on a steep hill, walled and towers intact, looking more like a fortress than a city. The Phoenicians, the Romans, the Pisans and the Aragonese each left a layer, and you can trace the succession by walking from the Tuvixeddu necropolis, the largest surviving Punic burial site in the Mediterranean, through the Roman amphitheatre, up into the medieval towers of Torre di San Pancrazio and Torre dell'Elefante at the gates of Castello.

The Feast of Sant'Efisio on May 1st is one of the oldest continuously celebrated processions in the Mediterranean.

Thousands of people in Sardinian traditional costume walk seventy kilometres over four days from Cagliari to the sanctuary at Nora and back, carrying the effigy of the saint who supposedly saved the city from plague in 1656. The rest of the year, Cagliari divides between its four historic neighbourhoods: Castello on the hill, Marina along the port, Stampace to the west and Villanova to the east. Each has its own character and its own pace.