Underground Cagliari Guided Walking Tour Sardinia

The Wartime Tunnel Shelter of the Salesian School

The tour begins underground at the Salesian school of Don Bosco, where a tunnel about 120 m long was dug into the soft limestone beneath the building. In 1943 Cagliari suffered some of the heaviest air raids of any Italian city, and families from the neighbourhood crowded into this shelter night after night while the city above was destroyed. Today the tunnel is lit by candles, and the silence makes its history easy to imagine.

Your guide spends around 40 minutes here, explaining how the shelter was organised, where people sat and how long they waited for the sirens to stop. Simple inscriptions and objects bring the wartime years close. It is private property normally closed to visitors, which is why this site is one of the best reasons to join an underground Cagliari tour rather than exploring the city alone.

The Crypt of Santa Restituta in Stampace

Beneath the church of Santa Restituta in the Stampace district lies a large natural cavity in the limestone, used by people of Cagliari for thousands of years. It served as a pagan place of worship, and from around the 5th century it became a Christian sanctuary linked to the martyr Restituta, whose cult gave the crypt its name. Traces of early medieval frescoes still cling to the walls, and you hear water dripping as you walk.

During the bombings of 1943 the crypt was used again as an air-raid shelter, and inscriptions from those months remain on the rock. Your guide shows you the different layers, from ancient cult niches to wartime graffiti, in about 40 minutes. For many visitors this is the most atmospheric stop of the tour and the clearest picture of how the city has always lived above and below ground.

The Roman Street under Sant'Eulalia in the Marina Quarter

The final site lies under the church of Sant'Eulalia, the parish church of the Marina quarter. Excavations that began in 1990 uncovered a large archaeological area beneath its floor: a paved Roman street with its drainage channel, the bases of columns and the walls of buildings that once lined the road of ancient Karales, as Cagliari was called in Roman times. Walkways let you stand directly above the stones.

The excavations are part of the church's treasury museum, which also displays silverwork, vestments and sacred art from later centuries. In about 40 minutes your guide explains how the Roman port town grew into the medieval Marina and why the street level has risen by several metres. It is a fitting end to the tour, only a few minutes from the waterfront.

Walking through Stampace and Marina

Between the underground sites the route follows the streets of two of Cagliari's four historic districts. Stampace, on the western slope below the Castello hill, is a neighbourhood of steep lanes and churches, including Sant'Efisio, where the great religious procession of 1 May begins, and the large Baroque church of Sant'Anna, rebuilt after the war.

Marina, the old port quarter between the Castello hill and the harbour, is a grid of narrow streets full of small restaurants, craft shops and old churches, ending at the arcades of Via Roma along the sea. Each walk takes about 10 minutes, and the guide points out views of the Castello walls and tells how merchants and fishermen shaped the district. It is the perfect place to stay for lunch or dinner after the tour.