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COSTA VERDE AND ITS TERRITORY
- where: in the province of Cagliari, in the town limits of Arbus and Guspini.
- position: Sardinia’s western coast, between Capo Pecora (South) and Capo Frasca (North)
- length: 47 km
- villages near the sea: Marina di Arbus, Tunaria and Torre dei Corsari
The area
The writer and journalist Giampaolo Pansa writes in the introduction of his book “Montevecchio, a mine of emotions”: “One year I happened to come to Piscinas and I thought I would spend a sea holiday like many others I had spent in Sardinia. On the contrary, I was enchanted by a world I didn’t know.
I am now captured by a magic, which will fascinate me until the end of my life”.
Beautiful beaches, small bays, rocky ravines, sheer walls on the sea, and sandy deserts, which reach the sea, follow one another along the coast-line.
The maquis stretches all around between centuries-old prickly junipers and wild olives, which “climb” on the dunes; the north-western wind “bends” them and they almost touch the ground.
If you look inland from the sea you can’t avoid noticing the huge shape of Arcuentu: it is an imposing mountain, which has inspired a thousand legends. On its top you can observe the ruins of a castle dating back to the “Giudicale” period.
Its nature
The inland is extremely evocative too: there are holm-oak, cork-oak and common oak woods, which hide the spectral structures of the abandoned mines: the very beautiful Lord Brassey’s washery inside the Ingurtosu mine and the large towers of Piccalinna and Sant’Antonio in the valley of the eastern mine of Montevecchio . These are real monuments, declared “Cultural heritage of the entire mankind” by Unesco. Inside them you can admire a wide range of very interesting archaeological remains.
The underbrush vegetation is very rich: Legambiente has obtained from the commune of Guspini to open a seat in the old school rooms: flora and fauna of this corner of paradise are studied there.
Brooms, almond trees, peach trees and acacias have wonderful colours in the springtime.
The area has become the kingdom of Sardinian deer after the mines have been closed: it is an ungulate, which has been living on the island for thousands of years, and has now finally become a protected species.
Other wild species live in that territory too, like for example the European wild cats, marten cats, wild boars, hawks, buzzards, Bonelli eagles and a great variety of birds