They never arrive late for an appointment, the people of Cagliari and the tourists who, along the road, stop to admire the majestic Roman Amphitheatre from inside. The walkway inside the magnificent monument will be no more than fifty metres long, and immediately a gate that is always closed is the clear signal that the party ends there and you immediately exit onto Viale Sant'Ignazio da Laconi: in and out in a few minutes, not by chance the full entrance ticket for the guided tour costs just three euros, which is reduced to two for seniors.

The work begins

But it won't always be like this, and there are two important notes here: the first is that construction work will soon begin to make the monument from the 2nd century AD accessible to visitors, in whose tunnels the people of Cagliari found shelter from fragmentation during the Second World War. The second note is musical: the last one was heard in 2010 and came from the amplification system of Elio e le Storie Tese, the last to have performed in the main monument of Cagliari before the music ended, the friends left and the Amphitheatre was left alone. But it will return to do its job: the stage.

Beyond the catwalk

By the summer, the city councilor for Culture, Maria Francesca Chiappe, guarantees that the musical notes will not be there yet, but photos and videos of tourists more interesting than those of today, yes. After having removed enormous quantities of waste some time ago even inside the tunnels, a construction site financed by the Region with a contribution of two hundred thousand euros is opening. The executive project is there, the company is about to get to work on the monument so that at least tourist visits are guaranteed by immersing themselves in the monument, and not after just fifty meters of walkway with a view of the gate.

The return of the shows

Important? Very, but it is not only that construction site that the Councilor for Culture is looking at: the most important is the one that, soon to open, in two years will return the Roman Amphitheater to the splendor of the 1980s until 2010, when the arena hosted musical and dance performances, theater, operas and concerts of all kinds, often organized by external entrepreneurs who "rent" the monument. And no, no audience on the thousand-year-old steps: as in the last years of activity, the stage and audience will be down there, on the level. "For these works", Chiappe specifies, "the Municipality has four million euros of PON funds available. Then there are 292 thousand euros and another 200 thousand of regional funds: "It should not be considered a separate construction site from the other that will begin very soon to be finished by the summer, which in fact will be a part of the entire project", concludes the Councilor for Culture of the Municipality. So, parallel work to avoid wasting any more time, and already in the coming summer - although not at the beginning - guided tours will allow tourists to admire a much larger slice of this monument. And, as will be right, the ticket will no longer be the symbolic three euro one that today allows the "hit and run" in force.

The network

"I imagine the Roman Amphitheatre not as a monument in itself," Councillor Chiappe immediately states, "but as the leader of a series of attractions such as the former Buoncammino prison and the museums in the Castello district: all together they will make up the tourist offer." The Amphitheatre, in Chiappe's vision, should be the flagship of Cagliari's monuments and also a place for culture and shows, therefore often open at night. On the other hand, this is exactly the moment in which one dreams.

Luigi Almiento

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