Cagliari Sardinia Day 4

Is the capital of the island of Sardinia, a region of Italy and literally means castle.  It is an ancient city with a long history.  It occupies a favorable position with the sea (a natural port) at the front, with fertile plains behind and high green mountains behind that.  It has a swamp to either side making it very easy to defend and the people could escape to the green mountains if all else failed.  It was established about the seventh century BC under the name of Karalis as one of a string of Phoenician colonies in Sardinia.  With its excellent port and being ideally situated for communication with with Africa, it was doubtlessly prized by the Romans under their occupation during 238 BC.

In 1943 the island was taken control of by the German army and was subsequently heavily bombed by the allies.  This caused the Germans to retreat and Cagliari was taken by the American army.  This was strategically an important position during the war and is still currently a NATO airbase.  After the war, the population of Cagliari rebounded and many apartment blocks were built often with very poor planning lacking recreational areas.  The city is currently undergoing large scale redevelopments with a metro system, museum, modern art gallery,  stadium, aquarium and amphitheater being build where the old apartment buildings used to be.  Cagliari has already become Italy’s greenest city.

The main beach is Poetto, a stretch of 8 km which is still relatively unspoilt by tourism.  The old part of the city lies on top of a hill were the castle is with most of its city walls still intact.  This overlooks the Gulf of Cagliari (also called Angels Gulf).  Cagliari is twinned with Buenos Aires in Argentina and Pisa in Italy.

Last night we had the Captains dinner and had to dress up with a jacket and tie for a formal meal.  We left port really early yesterday at about 1pm because its a long way from Majorca to Sardinia.  This meant that we no longer had any mobile phone reception so I couldn't phone my mum to found out how dad was.

 

He had been ill for a little while and his doctor had taken him off of two of his drugs and arranged for a blood test Monday and a visit back to see him on Tuesday so it was important that I rang mum late on Tuesday after his visit.  We are one hour ahead of England so I couldn’t use my mobile and tried our cabin phone.  I had read the paperwork and although it is expensive at about £7.50 a minute or part minute to phone England I needed to anyway.  I couldn’t get it to work o rang the reception for instructions.  You have to ring 36 then 011 then 44 then the STD code, then the phone number, wait for a double beep, then dial the last 4 digits from your Costa card, then your 4 digit room number.  She told me not to wait for too long because they start charging you after 30 seconds if you have a connection or not.  I tried loads of times without success.

 

We arrived in Sardinia at about 11pm local time which it 10am English time today.  I switched my mobile on to ring mum but I already had 3 messages saying that he had been taken into hospital at around 11.45am Tuesday morning; they hadn’t even managed to get to the doctors.  Mum was having real trouble getting him ready for the doctors and once she realized that he was incapable of driving, she phoned Joan, her next door neighbor before they moved.  Joan came around to help mum and to take them to the doctors.  When Joan saw dad she realized tht he was in no condition to travel and so rang his doctor instead.  The doctor had his results and immediately rang an ambulance to take him to Leicester hospital.  The ambulance turned up at about 11.30am and took mum and dad to Leicester hospital.  They had to wait as there were no beds available.  They were given no food or even a drink.  They finally admitted him at 10pm to a bed.  Mum sorted his things out and then had to get a taxi back to Melton Mowbray.

Of course, mum still doesn't really know what is wrong with him.  The doctor told her that from his blood tests he had something wrong with his kidneys and his liver.  I guess that by the time she visits him today (Wednesday) at 2pm to 4pm she will find out.  Joan’s car is in the garage today, but she has asked her nurse friend for a lift to the hospital.  The nurse, Joan and mum will all visit together.  So they wont get home until at least 5pm and we will have already left port before she gets home.  I have emailed Harriet and hope that she will find out for us and can email me back to find out.

 

Dad is really not very well.  The other day their electric had tripped and the consumer unit is in the garage.  Dad went out to reset it, and I guess he forgot why he was there before he arrived.  Mum said he came back in the house shivering without any clothes on and they still had no electric.  Mum went out, tripped the switch back on and retrieved his clothes.  It sounds like some form of dementia but as its happened so quickly we are guessing that it is some form of bacterial infection that is affecting him.  All his troubles have escalated so quickly, there has been no gradual deterioration.

 

Anyway, I will keep you informed when we find anything out.  We arrived in Sardinia at about 11am to rain and overcast skies.  Its a shame because Sardinia is the only place on our cruise that we have never been to.  We decided against any of the tours or even the shuttle bus because of the weather and other things.  We didn’t even manage to get down to breakfast this morning.  Good job they supply a bowl of fresh fruit in our room everyday.

 

By about 11.30am we were starving and decided to try the buffet food on the 9th deck.  There were about 5 different canteen style counters all serving food but it was absolutely packed out and was a proper bun fight.  We couldn’t face it and didn’t fancy, pizza or burgers anyway and opted for a drink in Ricky’s piano bar instead while we waited for ours to open.

 

The thing that we don’t like about lunch is that they normally put us on a large table to share with others.  I know it sounds anti-social but we both prefer our own company when it comes to meal times.  We are both very social for drinks times but not so when food is around.  I wanted to try and sit in our dinner table for two but the waiter guided us to a table of his choice.  As it turned out, it was close to our table anyway, so I asked if we could sit there and he agreed.  I was so hungry that I had four courses this time while Claire had three.  My extra course was a lovely seafood linguini.

Having more time on our hands we explored our ship to find all the pools and whirlpools on the top decks.  They also have a nice gym and we got the girl from the spa to show us around their facilities.  I’m not trying to get the correct text with the correct photo today so you will have to make your own story up.

 

This afternoon we intend to spend in our cabin reading which will give us a chance to drink our complimentary champagne at the same time.  I will give you an update, if possible tomorrow which is our last proper day in Palermo Sicily.