From the humble workers’ homes to the luxurious management building, passing through mining and processing sites, executive offices and services. Among the monuments of industrial archeology of Montevecchio, immersed in the territory of Arbus and Guspini, you will be on an historical-cultural tour to discovering a ‘phantom world’ re-invoked by a complex of disused mines, a few hundred meters from the dunes of Piscinas and very near to other lovely beaches of the Costa Verde. The mining activity of the site, one of the eight that make up the Geomining Park of Sardinia – symbol of the Geoparks of the Unesco – lasted almost one and a half century, from 1848, when King Carlo Alberto granted exploitation first to Giovanni Antonio Sanna, creator of the ‘deal of the century’, up until 1991, the year of final closure after decades of crisis. It lived flourishing and developing times, supported by technological innovations: in 1865, with 1100 workers, it was the most important mine of the Kingdom of Italy.

You will visit the complex via four itineraries. The ‘palazzina della direzione’ tour takes you inside the palace built between 1870 and 1877 by Sanna in the center of the Gennas Serapis village. Originally used to house both the offices of the mining company and the home of the first owner’s family, then to the sole administrative activity, the building with the classical and neo-Renaissance structure was the ‘heart’ of Montevecchio and also contains the church of Santa Barbara, patron saint of miners.