Argentiera

Northwestern Sardinia


A natural inlet about 11km north of Lago Baratz, the haunting backwater of Argentiera is dominated by the ghostly ruins of its silver mine, once Sardinia's most important. Argento (silver) was extracted here from Roman times right up to the 1960s, when the mine was finally abandoned. The dark-brick mine buildings, now held together by wooden scaffolding, rise in an untidy jumble from a small grey-sand beach. You can’t go into them, but they make a stark and melancholy sight.

There's a second, nicer, beach accessible from the approach road to the mines.

Argentiera is at the end of the SP18, signposted from Palmadula.