Rugged rocky coast in the west of Sardinia

Sardinia boasts varied, often wild, rugged and colourful rocky coasts. Shaped by erosion, you’ll find the most daring and imaginative shapes with a wide range of surface textures – from smooth and rounded, rough and porous to razor-sharp and pointed. The rocks also glow in every colour of the spectrum. Together with the deep blue and turquoise of the sea and sky, the reds and yellows of algae and lichens and the green of the vegetation, the result is an often surreal, psychedelic play of colours – completely natural, without any mind-altering drugs.

The reason for this is the island’s geological diversity. The rocks include, for example, white-grey granite (as at Capo Testa), pink porphyry (as in Marina di Gairo), slate and karstified dolomite limestone (Capo Caccia and Nurra or Supramonte), trachyte, basalt or other rocks of volcanic origin. Along the west coast, ore-bearing rocks containing lead, zinc, silver or coal were formerly mined and processed in numerous mining facilities; the ruins and remains of many plants and mining areas, from Argentiera in the north to Carbonia in the south, can still be visited. Names like Montiferru (metal mountains) are also clues to this past.

More pictures in the ‘Sardinia’ gallery.