Ben 113 of the 165 abandoned mines across the island are located here, between the cliffs and a turquoise 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 itinerary about 10 kilometers long, connecting the village of Masua to Cala Domestica, inside the Gulf of the Lion.
In Masua, the remains of the mining past are readable everywhere, from the group of houses cut between the sea and the cliff to the remains of the Calligaris Mine, with rusted yellow carts, former workers’ buildings, abandoned tracks, the Mining Machines Museum.
The trail, unfolding at altitude, offers an incredible view of the gigantic light limestone rock, called Sugarloaf, as tall as a 40-story building, around which there is a calm coming and going of dinghies and speedboats 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 transportation of the extracted material to the ships, the small balance ships, waiting right below the cliff, to set sail for Carloforte, on the Island of San Pietro.
