Our bus had stopped within a few dozen metres of a sculpture, and I’m fond of photographing sculptures. This was St Francis of Assisi, sculpted by Andrea Martini.

The city of Cagliari is somewhere we’d like to explore should we make a return trip to Sardinia in the future. From the viewpoint I was quite taken with the architecture of the Church of Saints George and Catherine (you can see it just beyond the trees towards the left of shot below). The original late sixteenth century church was destroyed by bombing during World War II and the new structure was consecrated in the 1960s. Its design features eight tall parabolic faces, alternately filled with colourful walls and windows.

When we arrived back at the port we were greeted by a long queue to board. Given that we’d also had problems boarding on embarkation day we began to wonder if the entire cruise was going to be blighted by this issue.

The Sardinian weather for the day had been warm, often bright, but prone to sudden, short bursts of rain and that continued to be the case for the remaining hour or so before Caribbean Princess confirmed she had everyone aboard and we could proceed towards the next port of call.

We’d expected a standard evening on the ship of a sail away, then a freshening up and changing into evening clothes ahead of some drinks, some food, then some more drinks but there was one period of surprise before we’d fully left the harbour area of Cagliari as a helicopter started to follow us closely. It didn’t feel like this could be a medical emergency as it would have been very easy to return to port so we initially thought it might have been security-related. However, we eventually learnt from an announcement that the local authorities had requested to be allowed to track us out closely as we left for training purposes only.

I’ll now include menus and food photos from the evening’s main dining room meal as some people enjoy them.

One interesting event took place during our late evening visit to Skywalkers. There were quite a few crew members present on the dance floor to start with and this was because one of them was celebrating a birthday. It was good to see everyone enjoying themselves. That wasn’t the interesting event. We were sat at our table awaiting a waiter to spot us when one did. He walked over then said “Hello, Sir Mark. Hello, Miss Marie. Do you remember me?” This was Benjamin and we absolutely remembered him from our Panama Canal cruise aboard Ruby Princess the year before where he’d been an absolute star. He’d be an absolute star again on this cruise too. In addition to him there were several other crew members from that cruise on Caribbean Princess and it was great to catch up with them all again.

The next post in this transatlantic cruise series will cover two days aboard Caribbean Princess in the Mediterranean. One of those was scheduled. One of those was not.

Italy’s island of Sardinia was somewhere new for us and Cagliari looked like a very interesting port city to explore but we’d seen a cruise excursion we liked the look of and we will often take tours on the first visit to a new place simply because we don’t know if we’re ever going to return by ship, and if we do then this gives us a good opportunity to get a feel for where the ships are in relation to all the things we might like to see.

You don’t have to take a photo of your cruise ship in port but most people do.

The culture or civilisation that emerged on the island of Sardinia during the Bronze Age didn’t leave any written records of their existence but many thousands of the structures they built can be found. These structures are called nuraghe, truncated cones of boulders with one or more large inner, circular spaces and a narrow means of access. The culture that built these and the stone villages that grew up around these defensible fortress-like structures are known as the Nuragic people as a result.

Our tour took us north from Cagliari to Barumini and the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Su Nuraxi. The central nuraghe was built first, sometime in the middle of the second millenium B.C.E., while the village around it sprung up later in the Bronze Age and included features such as a sewerage system. The individual buildings were stone, generally circular, and topped with conical roofs of wood originally.

We had a bit of time to kill upon our arrival at Su Nuraxi as there were other tourists visiting it and guides on the site were restricting the number of people on and in the structure because of its size and the single way in or out. Some people listened to explanations of the various ruins of low buildings in the village around the nuraghe and some, like myself, wandered around to take photos.

Eventually, a group ahead of us came back out and we were told we could proceed. To start with we ascended to the top of the nuraghe from the outside which afforded us some lovely views of the Sardinian landscape as well as a better overall picture of the circular forms of the walls of the ancient village that surrounded us.

From the uppermost point on the outside we could look down into the main tower where another group of visitors were waiting for us to enter so that they could then leave.

The visit to Su Nuraxi is not a tour for those with mobility issues, and you’ll need to be pretty flexible too. The descent into the tower was down a very narrow, sloping, twisting, and uneven corridor and steps. We frequently had to turn sideways on as shoulders would hit jagged rocks and there was one point that almost involved the sort of contortions usually associated with a game of Twister in order to duck under a low overhang above a right angle turn down a drop.

Once we’d all arrived at the bottom of the tower we had a chance to look around the dark chambers off it, although the darkness made photographing a rather pointless affair. Small rooms with stone walls. The group that had been waiting for us left and as we had some more information about the site shared with us by our guide it briefly started to rain. There were some quips about the tower filling up and us all floating to the surface instead of heading back the way we came.

We actually had to hang around for a lot longer than we’d expected as the site guides then gave the okay for another group to enter so we had to wait until they’d all made the tricky descent to our position. There wasn’t a whole lot to see or do during this period as the internal parts of the nuraghe weren’t very expansive but if you’re going to get trapped somewhere for a while then you could do a lot worse than have that happen in a place several thousand years old.

We retraced our route and did all the bending, ducking, twisting, and shuffling again but in reverse.

We had ten minutes or so to look at a few more of the village buildings while our guide made sure we’d all made it out of the nuraghe, and then it was time to leave.

We love visiting historical and archaeological sites of ancient cultures, and we’re also happy when we head off on a tour that’s maybe less popular with other cruisers as there’s something to be said for being different, so in that respect this was a great excursion for us. There were a few periods when we were generally hanging around and waiting given the understandable restrictions around access, but if you’re prepared for that then it’s a trip worth doing.

In the next post in this Caribbean Princess Transatlantic Cruise series we’ll hit a photo stop on the way back for our sail away from Cagliari.

The Thistle is a good option for flights out of terminals 2, 3, or 5, with just a few minutes driving to get to the airport car park from it, and we’ve used the hotel a few times now. We arrived, parked, and checked in for the evening, and for fans of pictures of hotel rooms here’s something just for you.

With a very early flight ahead of us we decided to eat in the hotel and have a reasonably early night rather than head out to a pub. The food was decent enough and we were talked into having dessert too. We then had one drink in the bar before heading back to our room.

I had a window seat for our short flight to Rome Fiumicino airport the following morning and not only did that mean I could take photos of the European landscape below us but as we passed Civitavecchia I could also see our ship in port.

When we booked this transatlantic cruise we wanted to add on a transfer from the airport to the port at the same time but Princess Cruises weren’t offering this unless you flew in a few days early and stayed in a hotel in Rome. That wasn’t possible for us but we knew it shouldn’t be too difficult to get a taxi outside the airport. As we stepped outside we were met by someone offering a limo ride for not much more than we’d been told the taxis were and he mentioned that he had a pass that would allow him to take us into the cruise port and to the ship while the taxis needed to drop people outside to take a shuttle bus inside. We weren’t entirely sure we weren’t about to be scammed but took a risk and yes, as good as his word, the driver got us to the port, inside, and dropped beside the terminal, needing to show a pass a couple of times at gates. That ride from the airport to the cruise port, however, was one of the most terrifying rides we’ve had as our driver spent most of the time on his phone or trying to get his sat-nav working and the car drifted between lanes on a number of occasions. We survived.

We stepped into the cruise terminal at Civitavecchia to a scene of utter chaos as seemingly every person had decided to try to embark at the same time. There was some attempt to hand out numbered cards to board people in groups but it was hard to make out who was being called so everyone just started gathering near the embarkation point. We couldn’t work out where the numbered cards were so decided to see whether our Elite status medallions would allow us to jump the queue. This angered one woman who saw we didn’t have any cards to hand and loudly claimed that we shouldn’t be there but at the same time a member of the local port staff glanced at our medallions then turned to her colleague and told her that we needed to be let through. Loyalty perks!

As we’d be spending the second half of this cruise crossing the Atlantic north of the equator we decided to book a cabin on the port side so that we could enjoy sunshine for the trip. We usually favour the starboard side for reasons of familiarity. Naturally, with Caribbean Princess being a Grand-class vessel we also booked our cabin on deck 10 as it has a half-covered, double-sized balcony.

First drinks aboard were a 24K Margarita for me and a Dirty Banana for my wife, taken on the top deck in the sunshine. When it got a little too warm for us – our sun block was in our main luggage which hadn’t reached our room at this point – we then hit Vines to check out the wine offerings aboard.

Prior to this cruise I’d joined a Facebook group for it – groups like this are the only reason I maintain a Facebook account at all as they can include useful information for travel – and there was a meet-up for the first evening by the aft pool under the Skywalkers extension so we went along to be social. The ship still hadn’t left the port as it only had a short distance to sail for the first stop on this itinerary. We spoke to one of the officers in attendance at one point and chatted to a couple of other passengers before finding ourselves talking with a Romanian woman cruising solo. She latched onto us as we were also European and it transpired that her fiancé worked on the ship so this was a way for her to cruise and spend time with him. We ended up inviting her to join us for dinner and we’d end up seeing and speaking to her throughout the cruise.

We hit Skywalkers for a bit at the end of the day, mostly to ride the travelator up to it as it had been years since we’d been on a ship with this configuration and Caribbean Princess was now the only ship in the fleet you could still do this on, but it had been a long day for us so we didn’t stay as late as we could have.

In the next post in this Caribbean Princess transatlantic cruise series we’ll be visiting the island of Sardinia for the first time and heading off on an excursion to see the Bronze Age settlement of Su Nuraxi at Barumini.