«CAgliari has the inverted foundations of a celestial city. Everything that stands out is made of sturdy rock and clings to the sky, but what supports it has a base in limestone cavities and echoes of water. I’ve never seen her need the night to become beautiful and I can’t get enough of it” said the Sardinian writer Michela Murgia.
Heavenly Cagliari, rich in sea and sky, it really is. For its intense light, the hills reflected in the water and the stars at night.
«They call it “the new Miami” for its waterfront, its sporting life, its connection with the sea and with Poetto, the beach a stone’s throw from the centre, where they are redeveloping Deco buildings overlooking a long strip of white sand. A sort of local South Beach» says the artist and designer Giorgio Casu, who returned to live here from the United States.
The Poetto beach in Cagliari and the Sella del Diavolo promontory.
In the kingdom of flamingos
Is exactly Poetto, next to the salt pans of the Molentargius Park, the kingdom of flamingos which turn the sky pink at sunset, the first glimpse that appears as you land in the city. To be discovered starting from port, where work is underway on “a green promenade for the Cagliari seafront”, a project by architect Stefano Boeri who, by summer 2024, will redefine the space of the Marina and renew Via Roma with tree-lined avenues. Continue next to the Luna Rossa Prada headquarters, along the palm-lined promenade until small port of Su Siccu.
The pink flamingos of the salt pans of the Molentargius Park. in Cagliari.
The winter sea in Cagliari
Here you can jog, play padel, cycle or sip a drink on the moored Sea Flower boat or in La Paillotte, a bar with a private cove, and then continue towards Capo Sant’Elia, where the trekking paths that climb to the Sella del Diavolo start: it is the promontory rich in legends, of which the best known is that the demons were enchanted by it and tried to take possession of it. Behind, it begins the Poetto beach, where it is nice to let time slip by at any time of the year: you choose your own strip of beach, you train by practicing your favorite sport – running, sailing, surfing and even battle rope (with ropes) are popular for cardio exercise – or book one of the many beach clubs. La Prima Fermata, suitable for families, Le Palmette, also a restaurant, Alba Chiara, for a cocktail, and the traditional D’Aquila and Lido, loved by those who practice yoga out of season, while in the background stands the former Marino Hospital, in the future a hotel five stars.
Piazza Deffenu and via Roma, in Cagliari. They will become a tree-lined square by the sea and a green boulevard.
You bet everything on the green
Cagliari, thanks to its sustainable solutions, also has a green heartin line with the philosophy of urban forestation: 5700 square meters of green areas and over 200 trees, in Boeri’s project, which will become an urban and social connector with the sea. Botanists and enthusiasts go to the Botanical Garden in Stampace, which houses 2000 specimens of trees and plants, including exotic and local species. Even the nineteenth-century ones Public Gardens, on the slopes of the Castello district and the Saint Remy Bastion, constitute an important city lung and are often the venue for literary meetings. Here the writer Stefano Mancuso was recently enchanted by the over one hundred year old magnolioid ficus. After all, yesfollowing the jacarande avenue, you then visit the Municipal Art Gallerywhich houses a collection of twentieth-century canvases and one of the greatest masterpieces of the futurist painter Umberto Boccioni, the Portrait of Ines.
A glimpse of the Bastion of Saint Remy, in the Castello district, in Cagliari.
Between art and visionary chefs
Cagliari is also a city of art, founded in the Neolithic and passed through many dominations. You can feel echoes of the past and culture in the Roman Amphitheatre, built between the 1st and 2nd century AD, at the Lyric Theatre, with its chamber symphony seasonsat the Teatro Massimo, temple of prose and dance, and in sacred places such as the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assuntawith the 16th century statue of the Black Madonna, and the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Bonariaon top of the hill of the same name.
The lunette of the central portal of the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta, in Cagliari.
Street art and graffiti, however, along via San Saturnino, which winds next to the Villanova district, among the most important restyling operations in the city, where many foreigners and artists have bought homes. Here, along Via Sulis, a bohemian area for shopping, as in the 41 shared concept store, for designer objects, or in the nearby Intrecci, for contemporary craftsmanship, you get to Casa Clàt, art boutique hotel with nine different suitesworks inspired by the sea and the city, signed by Giorgio Casu himself, and furnishings designed by the stylist and designer Antonio Marras.
The entrance of Casa Clàt, an art boutique hotel in Cagliari.
In the restaurant with open kitchen or in the garden you can enjoy seafood and fish delicacies from chef Filippo Monaco. Then going down towards the Marina, another novelty, Palazzo Tirso, a five-star hotel from the early twentieth century revisited by the architect Marco Piva, with a swimming pool on the rooftop and a gourmet restaurant. But what visionary chefs, like Pierluigi Fais, create at the table is also art: just book at Josto, a post-industrial restaurant in a former lumberyard, or at Etto, a butcher-restaurant. It’s easy to understand, then, why you can never be “satiated” with Cagliari, full of surprises.
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