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Places in Portoscuso, Sardinia

Portoscuso is a small centre right in the area of south west Sardinia also known as the mining region. When describing the mining region, the first thing to do is clarifying one main point. The landscape is not industrial, nor irritatingly boring and bare.

For three main reasons: firstly, when the mines were conceived the mining technique was mainly based on wells and tunnels; secondly, the mines were at the peak of their production before and during World War II, so that when the last mine closed in 1995, no major investments had been done for years; finally, buildings and equipments were not demolished or destroyed but abandoned.

All this means that the surrounding hills have not been flatten out, vegetation is luxuriant and the life in the mine can be easily imagined by looking at the ruins. Actually, the local government has pushed to revaluate this area by organizing events and by instituting the geo-mineral regional park.

The main cities in this huge area are Iglesias and Carbonia (carbone is the Italian name for coal), the latter built from scratch in 1937 and officially inaugurated in 1938 by Mussolini with a short speech from the city tower.

Today there are only a couple of mines still open but the production has stopped. The mining region is quite large, spreading across the provinces of Sulcis-Iglesiente and Medio Campidano. Mines and wells are scattered pretty much throughout the whole territory but the highest concentration is from the town of Iglesias (mines of Monteponi, Bindua and San Giovanni) towards the coast (Nebida and Masua) and moving north along the road to Buggerru (Montecani and Acquaresi).

In the province of Medio Campidano you should go straight to Ingurtosu and Montevecchio, in the valley just north of Arbus.