Around with Marta: Torre Salinas

The tower is part of a defensive system, erected on the coasts of Sardinia since the sixteenth century, for the sighting of the Saracens who coming from the sea plundered our land of food and slaves. The coastal towers are many and each of them is in visual communication with both the one before and the next. They all have more or less the same structural characteristics, but Torre Salinas has one peculiarity: it is the only one on the whole island not to have the classic circular shape, but a square plan and develops on three floors that are progressively narrowing upwards.

The high ground on which it rises has always been an extremely strategic point. There was a system of fortifications of probable Punic origin. It was used also in the following centuries because they emerged remains of military buildings (now dismantled) according to the construction technique of execution, the early medieval era. There was then a sort of specula with a garrison of two soldiers, which, however, probably during the Middle Ages and because of repeated Arab assaults, collapsed. The tower with the current base was built from scratch in quieter times, between the second half of the seventeenth century and 1720.

The position of the tower was privileged because it also dominated the inevitable passage for anyone who crossed the medieval eastern road that ran at its feet, which from Cagliari allowed to reach Olbia. Its importance was also linked to the presence of both the salt mines below, and a port already active in Roman times, Porto Sipicio (between the pond of Colostrai and that of Feraxi).

Among other things, not everyone knows that salt, in ancient times, was a very precious resource. Because in addition to the obvious food uses (flavor and preserve), it was an enormous source of wealth and in some parts of the world was even used as a currency of exchange! So imagine the role our tower played in protecting saline and salt from being plundered… especially during the warmer months when the water would dry out, as is still the case, and come to the surface! If it has never happened to you, from July onwards go to see how the saline is transformed: the water slowly evaporates and only the salt crystals remain and it seems to be in a lunar landscape! Also, throughout the year the saline is the home of a large colony of pink flamingos, which shuttles with the nearby pond of Colostrai…All the more reason to visit this lagoon area, which I will tell you in another round!

Torre Salinas was restructured in 2003 and, as is often happens in these cases, the refurbishment work has not met the full approval of public opinion, which now claims, a bit too modern… at the same time it must be admitted that allows us to visit it safely, to be able to inspect the interior… and to make our eyes with the exceptional view from the tip of Capo Ferrato to Porto Corallo in Villaputzu and to admire, in the distance, even the cliffs of Quirra!
From the campsite you can easily reach by car in about 20 minutes. Once you arrive at the foot of the hill, you walk a hundred meters of dirt road to the bottom of the tower (at the edge of the gate of a private house) and on the right, there is the path in which to “climb”. The last piece is not dangerous, but you have to be careful and use closed shoes, possibly hiking. Reached the tower, the sea that glitters all around, the lush Mediterranean vegetation and the rocks that bear witness to the fortified past, repay the short climb.

Come and visit me at the reception, I will suggest the most suitable road and other possible stops around!

See you soon,

Marta