A Slow Tour in Iglesias, in Southern Sardinia

This weekend, from the 17th to the 19th of March, we will be following our ambassadors Holly and Maria on a Slow Tour in Iglesias, in the south of Sardinia, where they will act as correspondents for Italia Slow Tour and Gate Magazine!

Holly Fizer is an Italian student at Indiana University, the American university that, as you may recall, has included an Italia Slow Tour module in its study courses! Our videos are used as educational materials to listen to and learn the language, but they are also used to discover Italy outside of the stereotypes, beyond the usual tourist destinations. Holly is in Bologna for a semester, where she is enrolled in the BCSP study program. She tells us about herself that being completely immersed in Italian culture is an incredible adventure, and that Italy is the ideal place to retrace the history she has studied. She enjoys writing and traveling, which is why we chose her as our correspondent. Maria Acampora, an archeology student at the University of Bologna and a cultural heritage graduate in her hometown of Naples, joins her. She has many interests, including reading, photography, and travel, and she is always interested in discovering new places in Italy.

The Tour

Holly and Maria will begin their three-day visit to Iglesias with a guided tour of the medieval city, seeing the churches and fortifications of the ancient Villa di Chiesa, the streets of the historic center, and reliving village life through the Breve (i.e. brief), an ancient code of laws from the 14th century kept in the municipal historical archive. The tour will conclude in a historic bakery where you will learn about and taste su mustatzeddu, an Iglesiente delicacy, the traditional tomato focaccia.

Saturday will be spent exploring the Costa di Nebida and Porto Flavia. Nebida is a mining fraction of Iglesias which from 170 meters above sea level dominates the gulf of Gonnesa, visible in all its beauty from the “belvedere”. Going down 300 steps brings you to the Laveria Lamarmora, a late-nineteenth-century mining structure that was used for sorting and washing minerals at the time it was operational. Holly and Maria will then decide whether to take the 7km trek along the Santa Barbara Mining Path, crossing the Iglesia coast with its luxuriant Mediterranean scrub and geological formations dating back 550 million years to Porto Flavia, or to go straight to the refreshment point for an aperitif with island product tasting, overlooking the sea.

Porto Flavia is one of Sardinia’s wonders, an extraordinary industrial archeology monument that dominates the coast, providing visitors with a breathtaking view of the thousand shades of blue of the sea of Masua and of Pan di Zucchero, the highest sea stack in the Mediterranean, a national natural monument! It is a sea landing, a one-of-a-kind engineering feat that helped speed up the transport of ore from nearby mines from the 1920s to the 1960s.

On Sunday our correspondents will reach the San Giovanni mine to visit the mining complex and, above all, the famous Santa Barbara cave, discovered by chance in 1952 right inside the mine. This cave is a cavity covered with dark tabular baryte crystals that is truly unique in the world! Last stop in S’Arriali, to visit the cellar and get to know its products with a tasting menu.

We would like to thank Iglesias Turismo and Visit Porto Flavia for organizing this beautiful tour, which we will follow on social media over the weekend, but especially later in the reports by Holly and Maria for our website Italia Slow Tour and in our regular column in Gate Magazine, the free press magazine of Rome airports!