Digging Cagliari’s Heart-Shaped Flea Market (Sardinia)

To sign off the summer, me and my mum booked a long weekend in Cagliari, Sardinia. Luckily for me, Mum loves a boot fair nearly as much as I do, so she had absolutely no problem with me dragging her twenty minutes out of the city centre on a Sunday morning for a dig through a load of old Italian household junk in the shadow of a legendary ninety’s World Cup stadium.

Getting There:

Flights from the UK can be pretty cheap if you head out of season April, May, September or October are probably your best bets and the weather is usually still pretty solid. We went in mid-September and it was still sitting around 28–30 degrees most days, so you’re hardly sacrificing much.

Once you touch down, getting into the city couldn’t be easier. There’s a €1.30 train connected directly to the arrivals and departures hall at the airport, and it takes about five minutes to get into the centre. Possibly one of the least stressful airport transfers in Europe.

The city itself isn’t huge, so it’s pretty easy to get around on foot. If you do need to travel a bit further, I’d recommend using the bus system, which is pretty reliable and a hell of a lot cheaper than taxis, which are ridiculously expensive by comparison.

You can pick up bus tickets from most tobacco shops and newspaper stands, usually dotted around near the main bus stops. I also wouldn’t recommend trying your luck and bunking the fare the Italian bus / fun police are generally pretty on it, as I’ve found out the hard way in the past.

Cagliari has a brilliant Sunday flea market called Mercato Cuore, or “Heart Market”, named after the shape of the car park it takes over. I can’t imagine there are too many flea markets in Europe with a better football backdrop.

The stadium I’m referring to is the crumbling Stadio Sant’Elia the former home of Cagliari Calcio and, more importantly for this particular pointless obsession, the stadium that hosted all three of England’s World Cup group games against Ireland, Holland and Egypt during Italia ’90. Pretty strong surroundings for a morning Tour De Tat action. 

Thankfully, the market itself is nothing fancy. No curated rails, no prices tags and much closer to a giant Sardinian car boot sale, which is exactly what you want really.

It’s also worth mentioning that everyone and I mean everyone I dealt with was really friendly and fair with their prices. They were so fair that for nearly half of my deals I actually over paid as it just felt like the right thing to do when the values were too low.

We were greeted by a tables of old toys, hundreds of antique tools, clothes neatly laid out on blankets, fishing gear, Sardinian disco records, magazines and all kinds of bizarre but beautiful Italian household objects.

It took a bit of patience, but slowly the football bits started showing themselves. Within about ten minutes of each other I managed to pick up a beautiful 80s Juventus squad mirror a 96 Champions league final flag and a couple of hand cross-stitched framed football badges.

After a quick coffee pitstop with mum we were off again and I clocked an absolutely incredible double sided Roberto Baggio fan T-shirt which is definitely going straight into the personal collection, before rounding things off with a lovely old pair of Kappa Cagliari trackies.

Mum also came away with a few unique Sardinian treasures, so for once my flea market mission didn’t feel completely selfish.

Obviously try and get down there as early as you can and have a proper dig. There was a few other dealers about but the main issue is the complete lack of shade. Once the Sardinian sun gets going, the whole car park starts absolutely cooking.

As the stalls start thinning out you find yourself underneath a little railway bridge, where you’re suddenly greeted by in a huge Italia ’90 logo painted on the side of the old training ground in the distance. If your a 1990 World Cup nut like me it really will do something to you.

From there it’s only a few minutes walk to properly explore the outskirts of the old stadium, with Cagliari ultra graffiti and Gigi Riva murals dotted around the surrounding streets.

And if you’ve still got any life left in you, it’s only a short wander from the dilapidated Sant’Elia to Cagliari’s newer ‘Temporary ground’ Unipol Domus.

So in the space of two or three hours you can squeeze in a proper flea market, some Italia ’90 history, a ruined old football stadium, ultra murals and hopefully a bag full of unnecessary football objects.

Pretty much a perfect Sunday morning. Just don’t forget your water a smile and a decent hat.

* After taking a little break, the Tour De Tat section of the website is finally back this Friday at 5pm (GMT).

There’s a fairly ridiculous amount of new stock going up after a summer spent almost entirely hunting and absolutely no time actually listing any of it.

So keep an eye on our stories towards the end of the week for all the details. *