Ben 113 of the 165 abandoned mines across the island are located here, among the cliffs and turquoise-colored sea, silent witnesses of an era when lead, zinc, tin, copper, iron, silver, and of course, coal were extracted.
Today, the Park presents itself as a tourist and environmental mine, offering several visit routes, including Mines in the Blue, a sea-cliff route about 10 kilometers long, connecting the village of Masua to Cala Domestica, inside the Gulf of the Lion.
At Masua, the remains of the mining past are visible everywhere, from the group of houses carved between the sea and the cliff to the remains of the Calligaris Mine, with rusted yellow carts, the former workers’ buildings, abandoned rails, the Mining Machinery Museum.
The trail, unfolding at altitude, offers an incredible view of the giant light limestone rock, called Pan di Zucchero, as tall as a 40-story building, around which there is a quiet coming and going of dinghies and motorboats with divers and tourists eager to admire the entrance of the Porto Flavia mine, almost opposite, inside the cliff.
An architectural jewel from 1924, with its littorio-style turret and two overlapping tunnels 600 meters long, which allowed the extracted material to be transported to the ships, the small cranes, waiting right below the cliff, to head to Carloforte, on the Island of San Pietro.
