For more than a century, it has been one of the symbols of ‘modern-day’ Cagliari, a varied and elegant mixture of colours and architectural styles overlooking the porticoes of Via Roma, which have become a destination for walks and shopping for tourists and residents, accompanied by the scent of the sea breeze. The seafront of the historic Marina district is characterised by a series of buildings constructed from the end of the 19th century, mainly in Art Nouveau style, with neo-Gothic and Renaissance additions. Before then, enclosed between the bastions of the church of Sant’Agostino, at the junction with the present-day Largo Carlo Felice, and the Dock, where the present-day Viale Regina Margherita starts, there were modest two-story homes, in which shops and trattorias were often opened on the ground floor. There were also facilities for leather tanning, while other huts, ‘specialised’ in the sale of fish, occupied the space adjacent to the pier. These were demolished for the construction of the port, starting in 1881, and a few years later a series of buildings started to appear, which you can admire today in all their splendour.