"Cagliari is very steep. In the middle there is a strange place called the ramparts, a wide flat space like a parade ground with trees, curiously suspended above the city, and from which an inclined plane starts, like a wide viaduct across the spiral road that climbs upwards. Above the ramparts, the city continues to climb steeply towards the Cathedral and the fortress. (David Herbert Lawrence, Sea and Sardinia, C.E.1921)"