Mercato Civico di San Benedetto (San Benedetto Civic Market), Cagliari

For a glimpse of local life, as well as a look at the tremendous variety of seafood that awaits you on Sardinian menus, make a morning trip to the city's principal market, the covered Mercato di San Benedetto. Along with one of Italy's largest and best fish markets, which fills one entire floor, you'll see the seasonal products of Sardinia's fertile land. Look especially for the sheep cheeses, for which the island is famous, and for the distinctive pasta shapes (easy to carry home as souvenirs). This is a good place to find picnic provisions for a day trip.

Among the things to do in Cagliari don’t forget to include a quick jaunt to Mercato San Benedetto, large covered fish market in the basement of the building and on the ground floor there is the meat and veggies section. In the basement of San Benedetto market, you also find a fresh bakery that makes all types of bread. Being Cagliari a sea town, its fish-based cuisine is delicious. As soon as you enter the place you will see everything, snails moving on the counter along the boxes, eels, squids, and mussels. The sellers standing behind the counters shout all morning to call customers. While this was not the place where we do our daily shopping, we did manage to spoil ourselves with some fried fish and warm fresh bread. If you happen to be at Mercato San Benedetto around lunchtime, you may want to try the fish they fry on the far left corner of the San Benedetto market and get yourself a warm loaf of bread. To eat your lunch, take the M bus towards Via Roma and get off at the port so you can enjoy your treat on a bench while looking at the calm Mediterranean Sea. Mercato San Benedetto is in Via Francesco Cocco Ortu, 10 minutes ride with the M bus from Via Roma that will drop you right in front of the entrance.

A symbolic place of the city, the market offers a vast choice of fish products, fruit and vegetables, meat, food, various products and services. Built towards the end of the 1950s, the San Benedetto Market is "the Market" for the people of Cagliari. Inaugurated on June 1, 1957, it consists of a structure on two levels of approximately 4000 m2. each. On the ground floor there is the fish department and on the upper floor the fruit and vegetables, meat, various products, food and services departments. Thanks to its 8000 square meters of surface area and over 200 operators present, the Market is considered one of the largest in Europe. Frequented daily by the people of Cagliari for their purchases, it is also a popular destination for tourists who are fascinated by the richness of the goods on offer and the lively atmosphere that can be felt in this place. The offices of the management of the civic markets which supervise their functioning and control for the administrative and disciplinary part are located inside the structure.

If it is true that there are many civic markets in the city, it is even more true that the San Benedetto market in Cagliari is the truest and most characteristic expression of the spirit of the city. Hundreds of exhibitors give life, every day, to a whirlwind of colours, scents and flavors that enchants regular customers as well as tourists who discover it for the first time. Every visit turns into an experience: from chatting with the sellers, to tasting many delicacies before purchasing, through to the cooking shows and thematic events offered depending on the seasons, shopping here has a different flavour. Forget the supermarket, with the plastic packaging and the fixed price: the beauty of the San Benedetto market is the human contact, the gift you don't expect, the invitations from the exhibitors that never fail to make you smile. ***PH***