Off the ferry and turning north up the southwest coast of Sardegna, we are entering old mining country—silver, sulphur, copper, barium, zinc, lead. Elisabetta in Teulada told us not to miss Iglesias while we’re on our way to Piscinas. The landscape is dotted with defunct buildings, rusted machinery, wooden chutes, and roads leading off into nowhere.
This former boomtown looks like a stage set. Elegant façades, iron balconies, streets made for strolling. Although mining activity is traced back to the Phoenicians, it peaked in the Middle Ages and finally wound down in the 1970s. In the glory days, Iglesias was a locus for culture, trade, entertainment. I imagine the wives from grim, outlying mining settlements brought to town for bright lights, a chance to mingle, shop for fabric and trims, see a performance. Mining is not near the top of my travel interests; going into dangerous underground tunnels seems like as bad as work gets, but I am interested in the lives led in this far outpost. Iglesias gives a glimpse.
We park near the piazza of the handsome church of Santa Clara. Inside, two astonishing things to admire: a painted, dressed wooden saint (or Madonna) holding a white feather plume. A marble holy water bowl held by an angel, so exquisitely carved that the folds of its robe look real. In the next piazza, we stop for a cappuccino at Antico Caffè Lamarmora, a colorfully decorated art deco building with a bar on the lower floor. Adorning the façade are faded paintings of bottles of vermouth, Marsala, Fernet-Branca. We then stroll on into via Matteotti, the scene of a playful installation. Hundreds of open umbrellas in bright colors hang over the street, shading it and casting shadows.
This main street opens to a park, where the mining wives must have strolled with their own umbrellas to protect them from torrid sun. We buy a hunk of pecorino and avoid the cheese that our favorite waiter at Vigilius in Alto Adige highly recommended. A Sardinian, he was full of enthusiasm for casu marzu. The name means “rotten cheese.” As part of the process of making this pecorino, a core is drilled in the cheese and maggots are placed inside. They’re given a little milk to make themselves at home, then gradually they lay eggs that hatch and they all work their way around the whole cheese, munching and breaking down fats with their digestive outpourings. Both worms and pecorino are then spread on bread with the maggots still alive. And the maggots can jump. We aren’t interested.
“Want to see the mining museum?” Ed pinpoints it on the map.
“I think we should move on and get to Piscinas for lunch.”
“Seems a shame not to explore every nook here.”
“I can’t wait to see those dunes.”
“Can’t see everything. Andiamo.”
SARDEGNA IS ALL about beaches. If you have no interest in marvelous coasts, blissful clear waters, soft amber sand, food pulled out of the sea this morning, you’d be happier vacationing elsewhere. I love these secluded beaches. I like to walk, take deep breaths, feel silky sand between my toes, take out my book and read a paragraph. Put it down. Remember other times I’ve been beside clear seas, read another page, pick up a rock, let the water chill my legs.
ON THE WAY, we see more industrial archeology. After the turn for Piscinas, we’re on an unpaved road. Soon we arrive at an abandoned mine.
The ruins seem to emerge from the bottom of a hill. A doorway, an arch, an oculus, rows of square columns. Blast furnace chimneys. The scene looks bombed. Looks ancient, too, the colors blending into the hillside. The sign says from 1900 to 1970 it was a washery, a place where the minerals were separated from “barren material.”
Nineteen seventy! Impossible that the site has gone into ancient history so quickly. A great novel could emerge from these bricks. The Hollow Earth…A few intact houses exist; others have one side missing, showing interiors with scraps of plaster and sagging beams.
I SAW PISCINAS in a twenty-year-old guidebook. It mentioned a hotel, Le Dune, which I hadn’t seen listed in my research. What luck. We have landed in a unique place on the planet. At the end of the nine-kilometer corduroy road that must become dicey when rain torrents flow, we come to a low, almost Spanish Mission–style building smack on an impossibly wide golden beach backed by rolling, gigantic sand dunes. These are not just any old dunes, these are the tallest dunes in Europe. Formed by the mistral winds, they rise to thirty or more meters. Arid as they look, plants still grow, especially wind-formed olives and juniper. The dunes undulate down the coast. You can almost hallucinate and see a camel cresting over the top.
After a quick salad lunch, we settle into our room. We booked late and are in a small room. Not a problem. We change into our suits and walk the long path across the beach to occupy our chaise longues. The sea is flat today, utterly transparent. On the wide expanse, there are only six people. The German couple near us sprawls in the sun as though they’ve waited their whole lives for this. We walk as far as we can see and back, then walk again. I finish Sea and Sardinia. Too bad old grumpy Lawrence didn’t come here. He’d have to have waxed ecstatic. The sand is so soft I sink to my ankles with each step. The water feels too chilly for me but a couple of young boys chase a ball into the surf, throwing it back and forth.
At sunset, everyone staying here gathers in the courtyard for spritzes and sunset. Some are poised with cameras, hoping to catch the green flash. If you’re ever going to see it, that would be now.
WHEN IT IS dark and the stars are burning holes in the sky, we go inside to dinner. The restaurant is green and eco-conscious, which must not be easy in this remote locale. We will always order cardoon when we see it. With a glass of prosecco, we have a salad of the tender stalks cooked in green tea and served with edible flowers. As our secondi arrive, Ed orders a wine made of a grape new to us: Nieddera Rosso, 2015 (nieddu, black in dialect), native of the island. Dark it is, rich, too, with a sensuous wild cherry flavor. Tannins, but not enough to worry me. The waiter recommends crisp red mullet with Jerusalem artichokes, salted lemon, and chicory. For me, pork belly with apple and ginger chutney and potato croquettes. All that, plus stars over the sea.
IN THE MORNING, we’re back on the beach. It’s cooler today but still no bite of winter.
The desk clerk tells us this place used to be an outdoor camp for miners’ children. Another possible novel: The Lead Miners’ Children. We drive away, imagining their fun and laughter on the beach.