Belonging to an island is no easy task; being a city and gateway to the sea of an island is even more complicated, but it is infinitely beautiful. Cagliari was born where it inevitably had to live: on the south coast of Sardinia, in the center of the gulf, wanted by passing sailors who came from the east and, as they built it, fell in love with it. The stone of its buildings, time after time, blended with the quarries from which it originated, so that its appearance, during the day, was yellow, in the evening it was pink, and at night white. These colors were best seen from the generous, fertile sea from which the ponds were born. From the domesticated ponds were created the salt pans where the fruit of salt, the companion of life for citizens and sailors, was harvested. Cagliari then settled on a varied terrain of plains and rock but also became surrounded by water keeping a vital relationship. People came and went from the water, the city’s port marked the stages of time: ever-changing languages, colors, smells came from the sea for a brief stop or to stay forever, even to die. Cagliari offered itself as a safe harbor after long stretches of sea, comfort of dry land after unstable and risky sea pecking and rolling. The city, seen from the roadstead, with houses clinging to the rock and shimmering mirrors of water at its sides was a promise of rest and rebirth. Sailors, before they became its citizens, saw Cagliari, then lived it, in the northern and African winds, air currents that make the colors of sea water and ponds change: blue, turquoise and pink. Colors too important not to be ingrained in each inhabitant. When the need was felt to describe Cagliari, some wrote about it, others drew it but, out of too much love, they erred and made it even more beautiful: beautiful indeed are the pages and pictures that sing of it. Even today Cagliari calls to us, while in a hurry we go down Via Roma or if we trudge down Via del Fossario. If impatiently, in a car, we wait for the green light or if we manage to fit in a traffic circle, if we wait for the light rail or are late for the plane, Cagliari calls to us because it needs attention and knows who it wants to talk to.
