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 | Sassari Downtown car rental - Travel Guide |  |
Sardinia's second city, SÁSSARI , combines an insular, traditional feel, as embodied in its well-preserved tangle of lanes in the old quarter, with a forward-looking, confident air that is most evident in its modern centre. Historically, while Cágliari was Pisa's base of operations during the Middle Ages, Sássari was the Genoan capital, ruled by the Doria family, whose power reached throughout the Mediterranean. Under the Aragonese it became an important centre of Spanish hegemony, and the Spanish stamp is still strong, not least in its churches. In the sixteenth century the Jesuits founded Sardinia's first university here, and the intellectual tradition has survived, particularly in the political sphere. In recent years, Sássari has produced two national presidents - Antonio Segni and Francesco Cossiga - as well as the long-time head of the Italian Communist Party, Enrico Berlinguer (1922-84) - a cousin, incidentally, of the Christian Democrat Cossiga.
Note that if you're coming to Sássari by train , you'll probably have to change at Ozieri-Chilivani station, outside the nondescript town of Chilivani.
The City
The old quarter , a network of alleys and piazzas bisected by the main Corso Vittorio Emanuele, is a good area for strolling around. Take a break from your wanderings to look at the Duomo , whose florid facade is Sardinia's most imposing example of Baroque architecture, added to a simpler Aragonese-Gothic base from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Behind it, the eighteenth-century Palazzo Ducale now houses the town hall. On the other side of the Corso, Piazza Tola retains its medieval feel and is the venue of a daily market, overlooked by the Renaissance facade of the Palazzo d'Usini .
The only other thing worth searching out in the old town is the late-Renaissance Fonte Rosello , at the bottom of a flight of dilapidated steps accessible from Corso Trinità, in the northern part of the old town. Fed by a spring in which throngs of the city's women used to scrub their clothes, the fountain is elaborately carved with dolphins and four statues representing the seasons, the work of Genoese stonemasons.
Connected by a series of squares to the old quarter, the newer town is centred on the grandiose Piazza Italia. Leading off the piazza is Via Roma, site of the Museo Sanna (Tues-Sat 9am-7pm, Sun 9am-1pm; L4000/?2.07), Sardinia's second archeological museum. It's a good substitute if you've missed the main one at Cágliari; like the Cágliari museum, its most interesting exhibits are nuraghic sculptures. |
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