Punta Argentiera 4.6 km

Short but challenging hike from the historic silver-mining town of Argentiera to the Punta Argentiera at 220 m. The hike includes sweeping views of the Sardinian coast from the Capo Caccia peninsula to Punta Scoglietti near Stintino, historic remains of silver mining, and a challenging climb across largely unmarked terrain above Capo dell’Argentiera. Apart from the climb to the Punta through unmarked terrain, the hike is straightforward.
The hike starts on the piazza in the center of the largely deserted town, which is slowly being turned into an open-air museum dedicated to mining silver ore. There is parking nearby and at the entrance of the village. You ascend to an unpaved road, named Via Bellavista, which gives a good view of the center of town and the beaches. The road ends at a large dump of ore debris. Here you enter a small path into a valley, and climb through the valley from 25 to 100 m. Here the path meets another unpaved road, which you follow right. Here you have good views of the coast to the north and parts of the village. You follow the unpaved road to the end, where you have your first view of Capo dell’Argentiera. Here starts the challenging part of the hike. You first descend on a small path to a valley floor, and then steeply ascend through largely unmarked terrain to a viewpoint at 168 m at an average grade of 31 %. You sometimes see a bit of a path and cairns, but there is also some scrambling involved, as well as scratching your legs on bushes. The views are great towards the cape. After the viewpoint marked as waypoint, the path is easier and continues to rise until you get to an unpaved road, and shortly after, the highest point at Punta Argentiera (220 m). There is a shelter here, and great views of the coast towards Capo Caccia. Directly beyond the shelter, a steep rock face plunges down all the way to the sea. From the Punta, there is only descent. I chose small paths close to the rock edge to get back to the unpaved road, but then abandoned the road almost directly at some ruins where I did another shortcut on small paths close to the edge. When you meet the unpaved road again, you stay on it and continue back to Argentiera. After entering the village, you will see frequent information panels on the mining in Argentiera, if you like. It is only a short way back to the starting point.
Near the starting point is a bar restaurant, and it is only about 250 m to the beach. During the hike you will find nothing to eat or drink. This hike is inspired by, but not completely the same as hike 3 in the Dutch book "Sardinië. De mooiste kust- en bergwandelingen" by W. Iwersen and E v.d. Wetering (Rother Wandelgidsen).