Árdís - 01.01.1964, Page 27

Ársrit BancLalags lúterskra kvenna
25
A Visit To Sardinia
LILIA EYLANDS
Since our return from our holiday trip last summer we have
been asked many questions about the countries we visited and I’m
going to tell about some of the things I observed in Sardinia where
our daughter and her family reside.
We left Iceland on July 26, 1963 and flew from Keflavik to
London. There we changed planes and flew directly to Rome. The
most interesting part of that trip was to see the jagged peaks of the
Alps below us which pierced the clouds here and there. In Rome
we had a short wait before taking off for Cagliari which was about
an hour’s flight. The family was waiting for us at the airport
and we had a happy reunion after more than two years. In their
home we had our first introduction to marble which we were to see
in such abundance everywhere. This is largely due to the scarcity
of wood. Marble is more easily available and not expensive. It also
creates a feeling of coolness in that hot climate.
Sardinia is the second largest island in the Mediterranean Sea
—the larger being Sicily. It is about 160 miles long from south to
north and about seventy miles wide from east to west. It covers
about nine thousand five hundred square miles and has a popula-
tion of one and one half million. It is an autonomous province of
Italy. The island has been a veritable political football for many
centuries among many nations. The Greeks apparently never col-
onized Sardinia. Carthage annexed it about 500 B.C. Rome seized
the island from Carthage in 238 B.C. and organized it as a province.
Sardinia was treated as a conquered land that sent money and
grain to Rome. The frequent Sardinian revolts ceased in 114 B.C.
The island never really flourished and finally fell successively to
Vandals, Goths, Byzantine emperors and Saracens, later to Spain
etc. Each of these nations left some influence. The greatest of
course being the present Italian influence. Our children reside
in the the capital city of Cagliari with a population of about one
hundred and eighty thousand. It is located on the southern coast—
a mixture of the old and the new as is the whole island. They live