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Mount Arcuentu

 Address: 09031 Arbus (VS)

Mount Arcuentu is 784ms high and it is the highest peak of the volcanic chain that starts from Costa Verde. It is a group of wild and rough peaks made up of rocky huge walls due to the solidification of ancient stream of lava. Numerous are the varieties of animals that live there: a part from the Sardinian deer, it is possible to meet also wild pigs, hares, peregrine falcons, golden eagles, crows and partridegs.

The rocks of Mount Arcuentu are from basaltic origins but on the western part there are also fossiliferous pumice tuffs that arrive on the coast. From the top, which offers breathtaking view of the mining areas and of a part of the coast, it is possible to observe some ruins of an ancient medieval castle that show how the territory was populated in the past. The first document that speak about it is from the 1164.

The castle was an ancient Vallambrosan monastery and friar Lorenzo’s story is curious (a Franciscan Friar from Saint Ignatius monastery in Cagliari): in the 20th century, for 30 years, he spent a month on Mount Arcuentu to meditate surrounded by a marvelous nature, an absolute silence and the legends upon this magic place. Thanks to him, the spectacular Via Crucis, which starts from the foot of the mountain until the top, is still present. The castle/monastery had been used as a military emplacement, a perfect sighting point of the coast and of the inland.

Mount Arcuentu is undoubtedly an interesting place for trekking lovers with its many paths that offer ravishing landscape. It is reachable through the 192 CAI itinerary, of high/medium difficulty, which starts from Montevecchio, in Sa Tanca place, or through the path that starts from the road S.P. 65 and that, through the country, leads to the foot and the top of Mount Arcuentu.