Exploring the heart of the island, discovering its highest peaks and wildest nature is possible thanks to the stretches of the Sentiero Italia that cross Sardinia. Soon to be fully walkable on foot and by mountain bike.
It will be the longest trail on the island, walkable not only by hikers but also by mountain bike. It covers approximately 100 kilometres crossing Sardinia from north to south or vice versa – from Santa Teresa di Gallura all the way to Castiadas. The project, not yet complete, features several stretches that have already been mapped and verified by the Cai as part of the Sentiero Italia, and the entire route should be walkable by 2020. A must for anyone who truly wants to get to know Sardinia, where the real heart of the island beats.
The Sardinian Hiking Network (Res), established in 2017, boasts approximately 1,000 kilometres of trails, an already considerable heritage that could nonetheless be vastly expanded through a project that envisages cataloguing a further 4,000. This is the direction the region wants to pursue – and one we hope the new Regional Council will continue – which plans to enhance the natural environment and forest heritage by promoting and encouraging a model of active and sustainable tourism that attracts visitors seeking genuine, deep contact with nature, the territory, and its traditions, which remain extremely strong and deeply rooted in Sardinia.
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Anyone who wants to plan a holiday immersed in the Sardinian Mediterranean scrubland can turn to the website sardegnasentieri.it: it is a genuinely useful tool that provides a detailed overview of the region's hiking network. In particular, the "Le nostre carte" section allows users to select a specific area – a small geographic zone of the island – and access information on its landscape and historical features, the options available for active tourists, and the current trail network. All the trails uploaded are compiled in hiking maps, which can also be printed on paper, requested, or simply viewed as PDFs. The "Sentieri" page divides and catalogues the entire trail heritage of the region into sections – for example: cycle tourism, mountain biking, expert hikes – further broken down by area. This makes it easy for users to choose the most suitable itinerary and access the relevant information.
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As part of the Cai's Sentiero Italia project – a route that runs along the entire Apennine ridge, including the islands and the southern side of the Alps, conceived in 1983 by a group of hiking journalists who later came together in the Associazione Sentiero Italia under the Cai in 1990 – the Sardinia Region, and in particular the regional agency Forestas, together with volunteers from the island's Cai sections, are working tirelessly to ensure that the stages within the region are mapped and signposted as soon as possible using the new purpose-designed signage.
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The route – which takes hikers from Santa Teresa di Gallura in the north all the way to Castiadas in the south – has been revised and reworked to improve its quality from a hiking perspective. In some cases, what was once marked as a stretch of the Sentiero Italia has since become a paved road, meaning the work of the volunteers and experts has been anything but straightforward. Yet it continues without pause to achieve the set goal and offer trekking and mountain bike enthusiasts, and the entire region, a new way to discover the island: the longest hiking route in Sardinia.
Along these trails in the heart of the region, hikers will climb Sardinia's highest peaks: Monte Spada, Punta Lamarmora, Bruncuspina, Punta Paulina, which lie along a route that is unique from a natural landscape and historical-archaeological perspective. Various rest areas will be created, with the restoration of natural springs, old sheepfolds and panoramic viewpoints, as well as sites of botanical endemism, flora and fauna. The entire Sardinian itinerary of the Sentiero Italia comprises 28 stages, and in March of this year, on the occasion of Cammina Italia and the year of slow tourism, hikers guided by the Cai walked two of them to officially launch the new edition.