One can walk to the beach and enjoy to be in the very center of the village of Calasetta.  The village is on Sant’Antioco Island which is linked by a bridge to main island of Sardinia.

The unique, archaic dialect, the fabled food with its Ligurian and Arab influences, the local music, the processions and the farmers’ markets add up to provide visitors with an unforgettable chance to experience what is truly a timeless place. The village is inhabited all year round from about 3000 residents has a nice port and square, the Savoy tower scenic waterfront and panoramic lookout.  Calasetta was founded in 1770 by colonist from Genoese origin that were leaving the island of Tabarka in Tunisia where they stayed for almost two centuries. The village is now inhabited all year around by 3000 people and lives mainly on fishing, agriculture, sailing and tourism.

You can walk to the port to find fresh fish in the afternoon when fishermen came back from sailing or to rent a rubber dinghy to sail around. You can also go to the ferry terminal and ship to San Pietro Island for dinner and enjoy a walk in the nice small town of Carloforte. On wednesday morning a market take place at the port, you can buy fresh vegetables, fruits, typical cheese, bread and souvenirs. At night the harbor promenade is alive with stalls of local products and African and Oriental clothes for a walk and a funny and cheap shopping. The port of Calasetta was born driven by the trade in wine and products of tuna phishing. Now home to some small fishing boats and many pleasure boats and sailsboats particularly those wooden with square sail, so-called “Latin”. The port is also the terminal for the ferries to Carloforte.

The romantic lighthouse of Mangiabarche is one of the symbols of Calasetta. It is located less than half a mile from the coast, just off the tip of the Cape of the Old Tonnara. At sunset Mangiabarche gives its best and, in the storms it becomes a place full of charm and fascination.  From Cà de Anna you need to drive for 3 km to reach the Cape of the Old Tonnara and Mangiabarche. You can bike there or drive and find a large parking area at walking distance to the cove in front of Mangiabarche, where you can swim and dive looking to the lighthouse.

From Cà de Anna you need to drive for 3 km to reach the Cape of the Old Tonnara and Mangiabarche. You can bike there or drive and find a large parking area at walking distance to the cove in front of Mangiabarche, where you can swim and dive looking to the lighthouse.

The Savoy Tower of Calasetta was built in 1729 as a watchtower and defense tower against attacks from the sea, mainly at the hands of Arab pirates. Built of red trachyte, a typical stone island, stands at the highest point of the village and overlooks the beautiful beach of Sottotorre and let to admire a beautiful view of St. Peter’s Island and Carloforte.  The Tower is very close to the house and one can walk to admire the landscape and visit the small archaelogic museum.
The square is also home to night event in the summer. The Tower is the perfect location for civil weddings that often take place there.
The Tower of Calasetta was built in 1729 as a watchtower and defense tower against attacks from the sea, mainly at the hands of Arab pirates.
Built of red trachyte, a typical stone island, stands at the highest point of the village and overlooks the beautiful beach of Sottotorre and let to admire a beautiful view of St. Peter’s Island and Carloforte.

You will have no doubt: the whole Island is worth to visit and discover.

The unspoiled landscape, the easy-going local people, the fabulous traditional food and the island’s simple lifestyle all combine to relax the visitor’s mind and delight the senses. The Caletta bar/restaurant provides nice food, sun umbrellas, deck chairs and sunbeds, together with services as showers and toilettes. A dinner on the beach is recommended. Atmosphere and nice foods are worth to try. You can spend your time swimming, walking in the water and snorkelling.

Sottotorre beach is a stone’s trow away from the house. Its white sand and shallow water are perfect as children playground and swimming pool. Surrounded by the cliffs, ones that prefer rocks can swim and go snorkeling around. Sottotorre beach is sheltered from the winds of the east, south-west and south and is instead exposed to the mistral wind. It faces San Pietro Island and is the perfect location to admire the sunset.

You can walk, drive or bike to Salina Beach and spend a day there. Part of the beach is equipped with umbrellas and sunbeds and there is a kiosk where you can find ice cream and drinks and eat sandwiches and salads. La Salina is a beautiful beach at less than one kilometer from Cà de Anna.

The beach is surrounded by white sand dunes and pinewood. Just behind the beach there is a saline where flamingos and other beautiful migratory wading birds live.

Spiaggia grande is surrounded and sheltered by dunes and an ancient pine and juniper wood. Emeraldine water, white and soft sand allow along the sea walking. Spiaggia Grande is less than 3 km away from Cà de Anna. Our guest can drive or bike there or join the beach sailing from the port. It is the widest beach of the island. It ends with the Punta Tonnara (Cape of the ancient Tuna fish plant). Spiaggia Grande is less than 3 km away from Cà de Anna. When a strong Mistral wind blows the beach becomes a magical place for lovers of windsurfing and kite surfers. The beach terminates at the Punta Tonnara (the cape takes its name from the ancient Tuna fish working plant).

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The island of Sant’Antioco has gorgeous ones and there are more all around it, on the island of San Pietro and in the gulf of Palmas, as well as on the western coast of Sulcis Iglesiente.

I’ve been to all of them (or almost), but some of them I frequent and know better; these are the ones that I consider “mine.”

I particularly love Spiaggia Sottotorre, La Salina and Calasetta; I love Spiaggia Sottotorre because it is right under Cà de Anna (the house in the town where my mother-in-law lived, which we now rent for vacation homes); I love La Salina because it is beautiful with its white dunes on which lilies of San Pancrazia bloom and junipers grow, and for its crystal-clear sea, protected from wind and facing the island of San Pietro.

In my opinion, San Pietro is best enjoyed from the sea rather than land. There are few beaches and they are tiny and crowded in the summer. The magnificent coves, cliffs and stacks are best seen from a boat (a dinghy will do) and give you the chance for unforgettable swims.

My favorite beach on the island of San Pietro is La Bobba, and La Caletta, cala Guidi and Cala Fico (with its fascinating “fjord” of rocks) are also lovely.

If you leave the Island (by which I always mean Sant’Antioco, where I live, in Calasetta), going east/southeast along the Gulf of Palmas, the finest beach of all is Porto Pino with its high, pure white dunes from which you can admire the entire Gulf (and the Island seen from Sardinia), and from the other side the ponds abounding in flamingos, wader and migratory birds.

(Photo by Giovanni Paulis)

If you leave the Island going west/northwest, you come across many beaches all with the view of the massive cliff of Pan di Zucchero (of incomparable beauty at sunset). If you have the patience to go as far as the mining basin of Sulcis Iglesiente to Buggerru, you will be rewarded when you reach the splendor of Cala Domestica, a gorgeous double cove separated by a rock arch.

These beaches are a mere starting point, not a full selection of the many options. The western coast of Sardinia and the Archipelago of Sulcis are of such extreme beauty, it’s hard to decide which corner of this world to love best.

(Photo by Simonetta Zedda).

These beaches are a mere starting point, not a full selection of the many options. The western coast of Sardinia and the Archipelago of Sulcis are of such extreme beauty, it’s hard to decide which corner of this world to love best.

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I must say I find it devastatingly romantic. Sometimes it amazes me to think how I can take off and be there in five minutes, and even when things are at their toughest, sit down by the lighthouse and watch the waves breaking on its little island.

For good reason, it is one of Calasetta’s most photographed features as it is amazingly photogenic in all light and weather.

In calm seas, it offers a certainty, a guardian of safe sailing, a stable point for each of our journeys.

In stormy seas, it stands tall in all its strength, proving its indomitable constancy, simply always being there, taking all the waves beating on its back without giving an inch, and putting on a marvelous show all the while.

The morning light strikes brilliantly against its whiteness; at sunset, the sky stands in rosy contrast, and, throughout the year, the ever-changing fireball of the sun adorns it gloriously.

It may be a small lighthouse, like many others, but it’s here where I can see it, where I can visit it on a dinghy, and I can swim around it. It is mine.

And it’s the most romantic lighthouse in the world.

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Saving it from banality, cheap commerce, vulgarity and standardization. There are women, many women, who are very obstinate and very capable. And even in the silence around them, they manage to work for humanity and make it better.

Think of the Palestinian woman who grew flowers in hand grenades, making a symbolic contribution, a redemption, an obstinate mark of goodness, beyond a symbol of hope for peace.

There are women in Sardinia who are dedicated to saving something priceless that would be lost without them. They do it for the spirit that infuses the world, seeking its essence, its beauty, and because sometimes it needs to be saved.

Chiara Vigo is the last master of “bisso,” sea silk, in the world. She has dedicated her life to fulfilling a promise made to the sea and to her grandmother to preserve and protect sea silk and the secret of its crafting to let other women and the whole world keep on enjoying its magical beauty.

Sea silk is made from Pinna Nobilis, the “noble pen shell,” the largest bivalve mollusk in the Mediterranean. Its filament is collected by diving, keeping the mollusk alive and protected. The mollusks lives in the shallows between Calasetta and Sant’Antioco, waters that Chiara knows well, having studied their ecosystem thoroughly.

The dark amber color of the silk mollusk changes when exposed to sun rays, turning it gold, making a golden silk that is unbelievably light and brilliant.

In the time of Chiara’s grandmother, fishermen harvested the mollusks and the filament collected was long enough to make fabrics made completely of sea silk in its weft and

weave. After the fiber was dried and carded, it was desalinated and then twisted by hand. Now the mollusk is preserved and the filament collected is much shorter so it can only be used for embroidery with a technique called “unghiata” (with nails), or for very small textiles.

Pictured: Washed and carded sea silk 

The tradition of weaving sea silk is age-old. Legend has it that Nefertari’s bracelet cuff was made of it, as well as the embroidery on Byzantine empress Theodora’s dress and on Queen Margaret’s wedding gown. Pieces made with sea silk are priceless, given the skill needed (know-how as we call it these days) and the rarity of the raw material as well as the time it takes. Chiara Vigo‘s mission is to vouchsafe it for those who come after her, i.e. all of us.

Likewise armed with patience and skill, Arianna (ArJànas) lives in the historic village of Tratalias (an enchanting place about which we’ll write a post of its own). Here she quite literally cultivates a passion for linen and the age-old craft of spinning, weaving and naturally dyeing fibers.

The young Arianna is devoted to this art. From the small seed grown to the harvest of the plant holding this soft, strong fiber in its stalks, she creates textiles, wool embroidered rugs, and even shoes, necklaces and other jewelry — all one-of-a-kind. Arianna applies a gentle, almost humble passion to her work; under a thin veil of shyness is a powerful, determined character, one worthy of her Greek namesake, Ariadne.

It takes a lot of character in this world and age in which our values seem lost under layers and layers of useless things with fleeting worth and that say nothing. There is a feeling of great relief —a sense of redemption, even — in knowing that there is someone in an old workshop, in a ghost town, on a magical island, sowing and harvesting something that, after at least a year, becomes a fine piece of jewelry or textile, never touching anything other than her hands, wood, canes and wool dyed with natural colors.

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Phoenicopterus roseus — their scientific name — are red because of their diet predominantly of shrimp and mollusks. These migratory wader birds are graceful and absolutely elegant; Sardinia is their perfect habitat with its many wetlands where some live year-round.

They are found on Sant’Antioco island in ponds (one in Sant’Antioco, overlooking the Gulf of Palmas and one in Calasetta, right behind the dunes of La Salina beach). They are also found on Carloforte, the island of San Pietro, and you might see them fly by at sunset above the Calasetta tourist port, heading towards the ponds of the isthmus connecting Sardinia to the island of San Pietro, where they live in large numbers. Their great appeal is heightened by their black-mottled wings and long necks that are stretched straight as arrows when they fly in formation.

Photo by Filippo Melis (APMolentargius)

Sardinia is heaven on earth for birders. There are more than just flamingos; all the wetlands are full of magnificent birds and the inlands are home to a great many birds of prey, both migratory and stationary, like buzzards, peregrine falcons, hawks, barn owls, burrowing owls, horned owls, greater and lesser kestrels, as well as a plethora of colorful birds like green finches, bee-eaters and countless others.

But more about that in a future post all about our flying friends!

(Photo by Giovanni Paulis)

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Sottotorre is the cove right below the Torre Sabauda tower overlooking the town. It’s a gorgeous, white-beached cove with crystal-blue water that is very shallow, making it a popular destination for families with children. La Salina, just a kilometer out of town, has two white sandy dunes dotted with San Pancrazio lilies where two species of wind-bent juniper grow: juniperus phoenicea, or Phoenician juniper, and juniperus macrocarpa.

A bit further is Spiaggia Grande, a cove stretching to Punta della Tonnara, venerated by surfers as it is open to the mistral wind; part of it is reserved for tourists traveling with their canine friends.

Posidonia oceanica, or Neptune grass, has lived in the Mediterranean for many millennia, since between 80,000 and 200,000 years, they say. In fact, it was recently discovered to be the oldest organism in the Mediterranean, according to Francesca Mancuso in Green Me (who also took the picture).

The grass is a full-fledged water plant, not just alga. Native to the Mediterranean Sea, its name comes from the mythological Greek god of the seas, Poseidon (Neptune in Roman mythology). Neptune’s grass usually covers large areas, called “fields” that provide shelter and the habitat of many fish and other plants. Plus it oxygenates the sea and is an indicator of clean water. When it dries, it is pushed by currents and accumulates along the beaches. Sometimes it forms tall layers as soft as pillows. Italian law protects it and prohibits its removal, to the displeasure of many who don’t like it and want it gone.

But those of us who have always known it, and appreciate it for how its softness and how it makes the sea fragrant, would rather see gone the plastic and garbage of all sorts left by beach-goers on the beaches. We’d let Neptune grass stay; after all, this is its home.

And, depending on the currents, sea temperature, storm surges and other factors, beaches in the center of the Mediterranean, particularly a wind-exposed island like Sant’Antioco, often change shape, becoming longer or shorter, and then back again.

One of the lucky things about living here is watching the beaches change in summer and winter, at dawn and dusk, with the wind or calm airs, when they are deserted or teeming…

In the photo a winter view of Spiaggia Sottotorre in Calasetta by Roberto Romans Zucca.

Gallery’s photo are by Paola Parigi, Roberto Romans Zucca and Enzo Zucca.

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