Cagliari

Walls the Pisans raised early in the 14th century and two white limestone towers guard the old hilltop quarter. Public lifts climb from the lower town straight onto the walls, sparing you the steep stairs. Alleys are tight, so only residents may drive in.

A white stairway and broad terrace added to the south walls as the 1800s closed, climbed from Piazza Costituzione through an arch-like flight of steps. Harbour and lagoon spread below, so at sunset people lean along the railing.

The carved pulpits either side of the entrance were made in the 12th century for Pisa Cathedral; Pisa sent them here in 1312, and one pulpit was split into two. Below the altar, the crypt walls are packed with small niches holding martyrs' bones.

Palm-sized bronze figures from the Nuragic age fill case after case, among them archers and a mother holding an infant. Some of the giant stone statues from Mont'e Prama stand here as well. It sits in the museum complex inside the Castello walls.

Sand stretching nearly 8km east of the centre, with city buses stopping at intervals along the beach road. The Devil's Saddle headland closes one end, and the flamingo lagoon lies behind. Shallow water means a lengthy paddle out before you can swim.

Old salt pans turned wetland park, where pink flamingos live in flocks and nest. It sits right behind Poetto, so bikes can loop the embankment tracks. Fences close some stretches to keep people on the bank and the birds undisturbed.

The old harbour quarter beneath the walls, its narrow lanes lined with fish restaurants. Digging under the church of Sant'Eulalia turned up a Roman street and building plots, which you now look down on through a glass floor.

Begun in 1657 in thanks for a plague's end, the procession leaves the city every 1 May with the saint's statue on an ox cart. Villagers from across the island walk ahead in traditional dress, and the saint goes south to Nora, coming back on the night of 4 May.

Out where a peninsula ends, southwest of Cagliari, lie the remains of a city the Phoenicians founded and Rome carried on. Floor mosaics run right to the shoreline, and some parts slip under the water. On summer nights the old theatre holds performances.

A stone tower, or nuraghe, begun in the second millennium BC, with its village around it, listed by UNESCO in 1997. Driving from Cagliari takes roughly an hour, and the tower opens only to guided groups at fixed times. You stoop up narrow stone stairs.

One of Italy's largest covered markets, on two floors: fish downstairs, meat, vegetables and cheese upstairs. Certain fishmongers crack open oysters and clams for you to eat standing at the counter. Closed on Sunday; mornings are liveliest.

Hilltop church east of the port; its Madonna came ashore in a floating crate in 1370. Spanish sailors devoted to her named a South American city after her, good air: Buenos Aires. Seafarers' model ships hang from the ceiling.

A Punic cemetery of thousands of shaft tombs cut into a limestone hill, counted the largest surviving one in the Mediterranean. On the main road below is the Viper's Cave, a Roman couple's tomb with two snakes carved on its front.

Pine woods cover this hill park in eastern Cagliari, and peacocks roam loose. Near the summit the Molentargius wetland and Poetto beach spread out below together. Locals come for morning runs, and tourists are few.

Sixty-odd minutes by car east of Cagliari, a headland is protected as a marine reserve. Porto Giunco beach is a sandbar between the sea and the Notteri lagoon: swim on one side, watch wading birds on the other. A Spanish watchtower crowns the cape.