Cammino Minerario di Santa Barbara

The Cammino Minerario di Santa Barbara begins at the sea. Portoscuso is a coastal town shaped by two industries that seem worlds apart — centuries of bluefin tuna fishing and a 20th-century aluminium smelter that still dominates the skyline — but together they frame a useful introduction to the Sulcis: a landscape where extraction of one kind or another has always been the defining fact of life.

The opening kilometres pass through the Portoscuso pine forest before the route picks up the volcanic sea cliffs of the southwestern coast. The geology here is dark and ancient — basalt and granite rather than the limestone that appears in later stages — and the exposed passages around Capo Altano require care and attention. The views over the Golfo di Palmas reward the effort.

The day’s defining moment comes at Seruci, where a large Bronze Age nuraghe and the remains of a 20th-century coal mine occupy the same hillside. The juxtaposition is not incidental: this territory has been strategically exploited for 3,500 years, and the Sulcis coal mines merely wrote the last chapter. The stage ends at Bacu Abis, the village where coal extraction first began in the Sulcis basin in 1854. The Pozzo Castoldi headframe marks the arrival.

Note: exposed clifftop passages around Capo Altano require care. Download offline maps before setting out — signal can be unreliable on the volcanic cliff section.

The stage departs from the Church of Santa Barbara in Bacu Abis — the patron saint’s church in the village that bears the first coal mine — giving the morning an almost ceremonial quality. From here, the route passes through Gonnesa, a living former mining community with its own distinct character and a street layout that still reflects the company-town planning of the early 1900s.

The defining feature of this stage is the corridor of the disused FMS railway — the Ferrovie Meridionali Sarde, the Southern Sardinian Railways — that once carried coal from the Sulcis mines to the port at Portovesme and connected the Monteponi complex to the loading facilities. Walking the old track bed is one of the more quietly eloquent experiences on the cammino: a line of industrial infrastructure that made this territory economically viable for a century, now silent and slowly returning to maquis.

The hamlet of Bindua, halfway through the stage, marks a brief passage through more exposed former-railway terrain before the path descends toward Iglesias. The approach enters the city through the Cabizza neighbourhood and the historic Via Amelia Melis de Villa, past the Monteponi mine complex, before arriving at the medieval centre. Iglesias rewards a slower arrival than a transport stage might suggest: the city has accumulated 800 years of Pisan, Aragonese, and mining history that repay an evening’s exploration.

Leaving Iglesias — a surprisingly handsome medieval city with Pisan-Aragonese fortifications and a cathedral that rivals anything in mainland Italy — the route heads southwest toward the coast. From the first kilometre the geology announces itself: the oldest limestone-dolomite rock in Italy, sitting over the lead, zinc, and silver deposits that drove centuries of intensive extraction here.

The route takes on a quietly devotional character as it leaves the city: small chapels and shrines dedicated to Santa Barbara line the early stages, and the path passes directly through the Santuario della Madonna del Buon Cammino, giving the morning a spiritual weight appropriate to a pilgrimage route.

The stage earns its difficulty rating from two sharp climbs rather than distance — up to the Colle del Buon Cammino (339m) and again to the Cungiaus excavations (323m) — before dropping to Nebida, a clifftop former mining village that marks the dramatic start of the sea-cliff section proper. The views that open up at Nebida — the limestone faraglioni rising from the Mediterranean below — stop walkers in their tracks.

A short stage that packs in a disproportionate amount of climbing and descending, threading along limestone sea cliffs with the Mediterranean immediately below. The brevity of the day leaves time to properly absorb the industrial archaeology this stretch is known for, rather than rushing past it.

The standout is Porto Flavia: an underground gallery cut directly into the cliff face in the 1920s to allow ore to be loaded straight onto ships moored below, still considered one of the most audacious feats of mining engineering on the island. Nearby, the Laveria Lamarmora ore-washing plant clings to the same cliffs, and the exposed rock strata along the path read like a cross-section of the earth's geological history.

Masua arrives with the Pan di Zucchero sea stack filling the view out to sea — a striking welcome, but a practical note is worth heeding: Masua has no food shops, only a restaurant open seasonally, so plan supplies accordingly before arriving.

The hardest stage of the coastal section, and one the route's own organisers explicitly warn against combining with the previous day. Carry at least 3 litres of water per person — there is no reliable resupply along the way — and download offline maps before setting out, since mobile signal drops out across long stretches of this exposed plateau.

The terrain's reward is geological: the Canal Grande plateau preserves fossils of some of the earliest life forms found anywhere on the planet, crossed here in full sun with essentially no shade. The old mining railway that once served these workings is still traceable underfoot, running toward the loading point at Cala Domestica, alongside the large excavation at Planu Sartu.

Cala Domestica itself — a narrow cove once used to ship ore, with a seasonal beach kiosk — is the one real reprieve on this stage, a chance to refill water and catch shade before the final push into Buggerru, a mining town with a long and difficult labour history.

A short stage that deliberately leaves the morning free to take in Buggerru's mining history before setting out. The town carries real historical weight: it was here in 1904 that striking miners were fired on by the army, an event — the eccidio di Buggerru — that became a catalysing moment in the early Italian labour movement and is still marked by a memorial in the town.

Beyond the memorial, the Galleria Henry and the town's mining museum are both worth the extra hour before departure. The trail itself follows the scenic Golfo del Leone coast road past the disused Nanni Frau mine, with the sea a constant presence below.

The day ends at the dune system of Portixeddu, where the Rio Mannu meets the sea. A practical note: outside the summer months, Portixeddu has no shops or restaurants open, so plan the evening's food before leaving Buggerru.

The final stage of the coastal section trades mining heritage for pure landscape, opening through the characteristic granite boulders and tafoni rock formations of this stretch of coast. An inland variant via Pitzinurri avoids the beach entirely and is the recommended option in strong wind or heavy seas.

Between Capo Pecora and Scivu beach, the path passes a Nuragic giants' tomb — the Sa Grutta e su Bandiu — dating from the 2nd millennium BC, a reminder that this coast was inhabited and sacred long before the miners arrived. The closing kilometres are the most physically demanding of the day: roughly six kilometres of soft sand and loose stone along the shore, where careful footing matters more than pace.

Piscinas arrives as one of the most striking landscapes on the entire cammino: the Scivu-Piscinas dune system, among the largest in Europe. There is no public transport here — Piscinas is genuinely isolated, reachable only on foot or by private transfer, which is part of its appeal.