The hidden Green

Expected time (h:m): 

3:00

Walk for: 

4 km

Difficulty: 

  • medium

Public transport: yes (www.ctmcagliari.it)

Go to the map

Starting from the sea to the sky and to the earth, many small oasis of nature scattered Cagliari. Large parks, and also neighbourhood gardens, bursts of capers and springtime jacarandas refresh the historic centre. Further on, the gaze gets lost in the pink extension of water of the Santa Gilla lagoon and, on the other side on the Molentargius-Saline Natural Park and on the right, into the blue of the Golfo degli Angeli (Gulf), crowned by a golden lace, the Poetto beach.

 

Botanical Garden

For the Cagliaritani children, it is a regular destination during school trips. Even one that is no longer child, in the Botanical Garden can close his eyes, relax his mind, dreaming of the woods and goblins, Mediterranean shrubland biome and desert. You can find all of these among the two thousand plant species, six hundred trees and more than five hundred shrubs where to dive during the walk through the ruins, memories and museums of past times.

Opened in 1866, the garden is divided into sections: Mediterranean plants, succulents and tropical. An exotic touch is the palm trees collection, which houses about sixty specimens of Euphorbia canariensis.

Municipal Gardens

There is no child from Cagliari, which has not tried, at least once, to ride and climb on the branches of the huge ficus trees, symbol of the Municipal Gardens, one of the largest urban green spaces. Conceived in the Savoy period, as harmonious space for citizenship, it assumed its final shape in the second half of the XIX century, with the full maturation of the plants. The large walk surrounded by trees forks into small places and uneven secondary paths, immersed in the meadows dotted with palm trees and exotic plants. Fountains and sculptures invite visitors towards the entrance of the Municipal Art Gallery, with its severe and quiet profile that gives a calming final to a refreshing walk.

Garden under the Walls

A green walk in the arts. The boulevard that links the Bastion of Saint Remy to the parking lot Apcoa of Viale Regina Elena (boulevard) has been returned to the city just a year ago and renamed Garden under the Walls. To explore it you just have to take the lift from Piazza Indipendenza (Square) or from the Bastion of Santa Caterina, if you are located in Castello. Otherwise it is also accessible by walking along a stretch of the Terrapieno (Embankment) on Viale Regina Elena (boulevard). Locating it will be easy, with its futurist amalgam and the hemicycle, heirs of the lines so dear to the architect Ubaldo Badas that revolutionized the area, immersed in the greenery. It is not the only artistic reference that transpires between the pavement and the benches because along the walk were installed seven works in stone of Pinuccio Sciola, in part homage to the eternal beauties of Cagliari.

Opening hours: daily from 7 a.m. to 12 a.m.

Free admission

Balcone Fiorito kermesse

Railings covered by clinging plants, balconies transformed into suspended greenhouses. The competition Balconi Fioriti overturns an entire neighbourhood and converts it into garden. It was born at Villanova from the green intention of its Committee to enhance, brighten, colour and embellish their area. It is the population to challenge each other in floral composition, lush shrubs, which in a few weeks explode on balconies, windows, windowsills, terraces, entrances, gates and railings. It is named after Rosa Maria Sotgiu and Ferruccio Luigi Bonifacio, known craftsmen of the OPI workshop in Via San Domenico (street) and creators of previous exhibitions held at the turn of 2000 for 7 editions. Held each spring, it gives the opportunity to benefit of a splendid spectacle throughout all summer to those who cross Piazza and Via San Domenico, Via San Giovanni e Piccioni (street).

The Music Park

Singers and dancers cross it every day to reach the Opera House. A place that beats with notes and passion, the Music Park, has recently opened in a hinge area between the neighbourhoods of San Benedetto and Fonsarda. A stream and some fountains create waterworks between the green areas connected by a steel bridge. These spaces host the music fair. In the background stands imposingly the theatre, treasure-trove of the love that Cagliaritani have always had for the bel canto.

Opening hours: Every day, from 8 a.m. to 12 a.m.

Price: Free admission

Monte Urpinu park

Snack, ball and a bag full of stale bread, it is the original equipment that a child will bring when visiting the Monte Urpinu park, the most important of the city. The park, nicknamed the green lung of Cagliari, is an ideal space for games and the close encounter with geese and ducks, which are waiting for the tasty bite, it is. The tops of the tall Aleppo pines seem to throb and surrender to the wind, visible even from kilometres away. For centuries it was dominated by wild nature (inhabited by animals such as foxes, from which it took the name Urpinu) and the most varied species of the shrubland biome of the Mediterranean region. Today, the park covers 350 thousand square meters, crowned by the Viale Europa (boulevard), which widen unmissable views on Cagliari, the Campidano plain, the Molentargius pond and the Poetto beach.

Molentargius Saline park

Good for rheumatism and fractures. The dense salt water in the reservoirs of the Molentargius Saline Park is a clinic in the open, chose by the elders and the soccer players to restore tattered limbs. It is only one of the many benefits offered by this natural kaleidoscope, embraced by the territories of Cagliari and Quartu Sant'Elena. Since 1993, flocks of genti arrubia (flamingos) nest there and won’t miss to charm passers-by with their formations that rise in the sunset sky. The 550 hectares of the park are also home to other 200 bird species and about the double of plant species, some of which endangered. The old buildings of the former saline observe with their history of sun and work, families, horses and cyclists that in the summer flock to the dense network of unpaved roads.

 

Website: www.parcomolentargius.it

Poetto beach

For those who love the sea, at its most lazy or athletic form, it is a must. The Poetto beach of Cagliari suits to everyone’s taste. With its eight kilometres of extension, which also cover the territory of Quartu Sant’Elena, it welcomes thousands of swimmers from all over Sardinia every year. It is a beautiful day guaranteed in one of the beach resort, on a sailing boat or on a windsurf, or in one of the bars that mark the beach divisions coinciding with the city bus line stops. Those who have replaced the trolleybus, stamped on the sepia black postcard along the expanse of colourful huts, small shelters that Cagliaritani families used, from WWII until 1986 (year of the much-criticized, even today, demolition), as a pied-à-terre during the endless days on the beach of the Hundred Thousand (Centomila).