Saline Conti Vecchi
On the edge of a lagoon near Cagliari, a salt works has turned seawater into salt for almost a century. Its 1930s offices and the train that crosses the pans now carry visitors instead of cargo.
At a glance
The Saline Conti Vecchi occupy some 2,700 hectares of the Santa Gilla lagoon, west of Cagliari in the municipality of Assemini. Laid out at the end of the 1920s by the engineer Conti Vecchi, they are among the longest-running salt works in Sardinia, in production for close to ninety years and still active today. FAI was entrusted with opening the site to the public in 2017, by Eni Rewind, and the visit combines industrial heritage with one of the island’s richest wetlands.
Key facts
- Location: Santa Gilla lagoon, Assemini, near Cagliari, Sardinia
- Founded: end of the 1920s, by the engineer Conti Vecchi
- Extent: about 2,700 hectares of lagoon and salt pans
- Buildings: restored 1930s offices, administration, chemical laboratory and former carpentry workshop
- FAI: entrusted with the site in 2017 by Eni Rewind; still in production
- Wildlife: around 35,000 water birds of some 50 species, including large numbers of flamingos
History
At the close of the 1920s the engineer Conti Vecchi proposed an ambitious scheme to reclaim and exploit the brackish Santa Gilla lagoon, drawing seawater through a system of evaporation ponds to harvest salt. The project transformed a marshland on the edge of Cagliari into an industrial landscape of dykes, channels and white salt mountains.
The working buildings raised in the 1930s — the management offices, the administrative block, a chemical laboratory and a carpentry workshop — survive and have been restored. They record both the engineering of the salt works and the daily life of the community that ran it.
In 2017 Eni Rewind entrusted FAI with the cultural and natural valorisation of the site, while production continued. The salt works are therefore a rare thing: a place of industrial archaeology that is still doing the job it was built for.
What you see
The visit begins in the restored 1930s interiors, where offices and the chemical laboratory have kept their period fittings, and a video sets out the history of salt-making on the lagoon. From there a small train runs out across the salt pans, between the evaporation basins and the heaped mountains of harvested salt.
The lagoon is also a wetland of European importance. Flamingos feed in the shallows in their thousands, among some fifty species of water birds, so that the industrial route doubles as a birdwatching one. Light, salt and water change the colour of the pans through the day.
Practical information
- Visits are by guided tour, including the train across the pans; book through the FAI website
- Bring sun protection and water — the site is open and exposed
- Binoculars are useful for the flamingos and other birds
Getting there
The salt works lie on the Santa Gilla lagoon between Cagliari and Assemini, reached by car from the SS130 in a few minutes from the city. Cagliari Elmas airport and the city’s railway station are both close. There is parking at the visitor entrance.
Nearby
- Cagliari — the Castello quarter, Roman amphitheatre and archaeological museum, a short drive east
- Santa Gilla lagoon — one of the main flamingo wetlands of southern Sardinia
- Nora — Phoenician and Roman ruins on the coast south of Cagliari
Sources
- FAI – Fondo per l’Ambiente Italiano, “Saline Conti Vecchi.” fondoambiente.it.
- Coordinates verified against OpenStreetMap / Nominatim (39.22391, 9.02383).
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