The Way of Saint Barbara is a loop of about four hundred kilometres crossing the Sulcis-Iglesiente, the south-western corner of Sardinia where lead, zinc, silver and coal were mined for nearly three thousand years. The route links the churches dedicated to Saint Barbara, patron of miners, and follows old mine roads among mountains, woods and stretches of coast plunging into the sea. Six stages tell of its main places.
Iglesias is the historic capital of the mining district and the natural starting point of the Way. Founded in the thirteenth century around the silver mines of Count Ugolino della Gherardesca, it preserves a medieval centre of narrow streets, sections of Pisan walls and the cathedral of Santa Chiara. The town still lives its bond with the world of the mine: the Mining Art Museum recreates galleries and tools in the basement of a school, while Holy Week, with its rites of Iberian tradition, marks the life of the old town every year.
A few kilometres from Iglesias the road reaches the steep coast of Nebida and Masua, where the mines looked directly onto the sea. At Nebida the Laveria Lamarmora, today a panoramic ruin suspended over the water, processed the ore extracted from the galleries. From Masua you descend to Porto Flavia, the gallery dug into the cliff in 1924 to load minerals directly onto ships, facing the Pan di Zucchero stack, one hundred and thirty-three metres high.
Further north, Buggerru arose in the mid-nineteenth century as a French-run mining village, with a theatre, hospital and management offices overlooking the harbour. In 1904 the miners' strike and the army's reaction, leaving three dead, led to the first general strike in Italy. Today you can visit the Galleria Henry, a route carved into the rock along the coast and once travelled by a small train, and reach nearby Cala Domestica, a beach enclosed between rock walls and old mining structures.
Climbing inland you reach Fluminimaggiore, a valley village at the foot of Monte Linas. Just outside the town stands the Temple of Antas, dedicated by the Punics and later the Romans to Sardus Pater, an ancient Sardinian deity: the columns, raised again in the twentieth century, stand isolated in a silent valley. Nearby open the Su Mannau Cave, rich in formations and watercourses, and the disused Su Zurfuru mine.
To the east, at the foot of the Marganai massif, Domusnovas is known for the Cave of San Giovanni, one of the few European caves that can be crossed from end to end: a natural tunnel of about eight hundred metres carved by water, once travelled by the road as well. From here start the Marganai trails, among holm oaks, yews and old charcoal pits, in a stretch where the Way leaves the mines and enters the woods.
The loop closes at Carbonia, a town founded in 1938 for the workers of the Sulcis coal mines, an example of twentieth-century town planning around Piazza Roma and its tower. The Grande Miniera di Serbariu, with the Coal Museum, preserves the lamp room, the shaft and the galleries open to visitors. Above the town the hill of Monte Sirai guards a Phoenician and Punic settlement overlooking the gulf, a reminder of how ancient the exploitation of these lands is.
The best seasons are spring and early autumn, when temperatures are mild and the Mediterranean scrub is in bloom or still green; summer is hot inland but perfect for the coastal coves. The whole Way of Saint Barbara can be walked in about thirty stages, but the six main destinations are easily linked by car in two or three days, leaving the car to tackle the finest stretches on foot — the Masua coast, the Galleria Henry, the Antas valley. The feast of Saint Barbara falls on 4 December, but fairs and celebrations are concentrated above all between spring and summer.
The Sulcis-Iglesiente is a low-density rural area, where farm stays often grow out of agricultural estates and wineries: in the southern Sulcis they produce Carignano, a wine from old vines grown on sand, and there is no shortage of sheep farms, olive groves and vegetable gardens. Staying on a farm here means dining on pane carasau, sheep's cheeses, fregola and almond sweets, and reaching each stage of the Way in less than an hour. It is the best way to experience the slow rhythm of this corner of Sardinia, far from the busier tourist routes, among sea, mines and silence.
