Industrial ArchaeologyAbandoned PlaceSassari

7 + 1 stunning abandoned places in Sardinia

by Giulia BLocal street art travelGiulia Blocal
Like street art, the exploration of abandoned places (a.k.a. urbex) is a great way to connect with like-minded people while travelling. It’s a passion that, over the years, has definitely allowed me to delve deeper than the touristic surface of a destination.
And so when in Sardinia, I got in touch with the guys at Sardegna Abbandonata (a website about all kinds of abandoned places in Sardinia), who were kind enough to show me some of their favourite spots in the northern part of the island (the area of Sassari).
abandoned places in sardinia urbex italia

Let’s start exploring some abandoned places in Sardinia!

Table Of Contents
  1. Abandoned places in Sardinia > Centro Commerciale Riviera di Sorso, Platamona
  2. Abandoned places in Sardinia > Cementificio Alba Cementi, Porto Torres
  3. Abandoned places in Sardinia > CIMEL, Porto Torres
  4. Abandoned places in Sardinia > Ferriera Sarda, Porto Torres
  5. Abandoned places in Sardinia > Saponificio Ledà, Sassari
  6. Abandoned places in Sardinia > Manicomio di Rizzeddu, Sassari
  7. Abandoned places in Sardinia > Diga di Bunnari, Osilo
  8. Abandoned places in Sardinia > Abandoned USAF Radio Station, Tempio Pausania
  9. Custom Travel Itinerary Service

Abandoned places in Sardinia > Centro Commerciale Riviera di Sorso, Platamona

Our tour set off from a quiet spot near the beach: a former shopping mall now surrounded by nature. This used to be the go-to place in the area, especially in summer. Shaped like a public square, it was also a social gathering place; from the stories of my guide-for-the-day, who used to come here when he was a kid, I could see the ghosts of its former glory.
urbex sardinia platamona centro commerciale
abandoned places in sardinia Sassari
However, due to the economic crisis, shops shut down and, after a girl was found here – throat cut – in 1996, the stigma stayed for good.
urbex sardinia platamona centro commerciale
urbex sardinia platamona centro commerciale
One café is still open, though, despite having almost no clients. Looking at its door, wide open next to rusty shutters and broken panes, makes the atmosphere of this former shopping mall even bleaker.
 

Abandoned places in Sardinia > Cementificio Alba Cementi, Porto Torres

Porto Torres’ former industrial area is packed with abandoned factories. When we entered this ghost city inside the city, Federico told me “I will just drive around and if a particular location inspires you we can enter it.” That’s how spoiled for choice you can be when looking for abandoned factories in Porto Torres!
abandoned places in sardinia alba cementi
Porto Torres’ industrial area was built in the middle of nowhere during the 1960s, a time when public money was heavily leveraged to support the big construction boom of the country. However, after the crisis of the steel industry, all these massive production plants stopped working, and the whole area is now abandoned.
abandoned places in sardinia Sassari
Attracted by its tall chimney, I wanted to kick off the exploration of the abandoned industrial area of Porto Torres from the Alba Cementi cement plant, a huge factory that opened in 1957 and closed in 1983.
urbex porto torres abandoned factory Sardinia
urbex porto torres abandoned factory Sardinia
urbex porto torres abandoned factory Sardinia
urbex abandoned places in Sardegna

Abandoned places in Sardinia > CIMEL, Porto Torres

I picked this location because of its geometric architecture, which is quite unusual among industrial buildings. The place was designed by architect Aldo Luigi Rizzo in 1969 and it’s featured in architecture books.
CIMEL abandoned places in sardinia urbex porto torres
CIMEL abandoned places in sardinia urbex porto torres
Its distinguishing cubes in raw concrete were designed as dwelling cells (like bees!), but they were eventually used to host the administrative offices of the woodworking company CIMEL.
abandoned places in sardinia urbex porto torres
abandoned places in sardinia urbex porto torres
abandoned places in sardinia urbex porto torres
Behind the offices, there are also three beautiful warehouses, which look like the empty ribcages of dead giants lying on the beach next to each other.
abandoned places in sardinia urbex porto torres
abandoned places in sardinia urbex porto torres

Abandoned places in Sardinia > Ferriera Sarda, Porto Torres

Next we visited the massive warehouses of an ironworks, Ferriera Sarda, which were all but empty! There is an entire forest sheltered inside Ferriera Sarda’s warehouses: the lush vegetation reminded me of a botanical garden, and there were pheasants flying in and out the broken panes of the ceiling.
urbex abandoned places in Sardegna
urbex abandoned places in Sardegna
urbex abandoned places in Sardegna
urbex abandoned places in Sardegna
While researching for this post, I read that the architecture of the main warehouse was inspired by Madrid’s Atocha station, which I find quite ironic since the train station now hosts a botanical garden!
urbex abandoned places in Sardegna

Abandoned places in Sardinia > Saponificio Ledà, Sassari

Driving back to Sassari, we went off the main road and walked through wild vegetation until we saw the red buildings of the former soapworks Ledà. The buildings were overgrown with plants, and the contrast between the vivid vegetation, bleached walls, and thick rust was definitely fascinating.
abandoned sardinia saponificio Ledà urbex sardegna
abandoned sardinia saponificio Ledà urbex sardegna
The Ledà soapworks was active at the beginning of the 20th century, when it was the main industrial complex in the area of Sassari, whose extremely modern plants and advanced pieces of equipment were powered by a water mill.

Abandoned places in Sardinia > Manicomio di Rizzeddu, Sassari

This spot was special for me, not only because mental asylums are my favourite ‘category’ of abandoned places, but also because I knew that inside its empty rooms it was written a sentence I love so much that I have it among my favourite quotes on Facebook.
urbex sassari manicomio rizzeddu
It can be translated as “You all hate me so, for spite, I love you all”
urbex sassari Rizzeddu abandoned mental asylum
The Rizzeddu mental asylum was opened in 1904 and operated until 1998, hosting up to 1200 patients. It’s located inside the city of Sassari and, like Santa Maria Della Pietà in Rome and other former mental asylums in Italy, it now hosts public clinics and other kinds of medical services inside what has become a beautiful park for residents to enjoy.
(Some pavilions are still abandoned, though, and that’s where I found my favourite quote painted on a wall).
urbex sassari Rizzeddu abandoned mental asylum
urbex sassari Rizzeddu abandoned mental asylum

Abandoned places in Sardinia > Diga di Bunnari, Osilo

The most hidden location that we visited, which is disappearing inside wild vegetation and blackberry bushes, is the former dam in Osilo. Lost in a beautiful valley just outside Sassari, this dam collected water from the Bunnari River, which is still flowing there.
abandoned places urbex sardinia bunnari
Sardinia is a dry island where dams are fundamental, and this one is the most ancient of them all: it was built in 1878, as marked by the now rusty and corroded large metal numbers hung at the very top of it.
abandoned places urbex sardinia bunnari
abandoned places urbex sardinia bunnari
After visiting the building that hosted the filter, whose art nouveau archways and deep tanks reminded me Lisbon’s water reservoir, we climbed our way up to the dam.
urbex sardegna sassari italia
urbex sardegna sassari italia
Hanging out on the inner side, I could see the former basin; now it’s dry, yet I did feel the power of its former capacity by looking at its empty stomach from above. Turning on the other side, I could enjoy a beautiful view over the valley: red, naked rocks frame lush vegetation as far as the eyes can see.
 
Human civilization is far removed from this place that nature is about to conquer back. The Bunnari River is still flowing through this beautiful valley, though, reminding us that, like time, rivers flow always onward.

Abandoned places in Sardinia > Abandoned USAF Radio Station, Tempio Pausania

Back in Sardinia four years later, I set out to explore more abandoned places in Sardinia. The forgotten places I visited last summer were quite disappointing, except for this one, which is so cool that it has earned a place in this article ;)

Abandoned places in Sardinia: the radio station of Tempio Pausania urbex Italy

I’m talking about the American military station on top of Limbara Mountain (in the area of Tempio Pausania, in the northern part of the island), the United States Air Force (USAF) Radio Station inaugurated in 1966 and dismantled in 1993, after the arrival of satellite communications.

Abandoned places in Sardinia: the radio station of Tempio Pausania urbex Italy

The station was built to transmit coded messages thousands of miles away during the cold war.

Abandoned places in Sardinia: the radio station of Tempio Pausania urbex Italy

Sardinia is disproportionately affected by the presence of no-entry military areas; not only the Italian army but especially NATO have transformed a large part of Sardinia into bases for military operations since the 1950s.

Abandoned places in Sardinia: the radio station of Tempio Pausania urbex Italy

Used for practice drills, training, testing new weapons, fuel dumping, and other destructive operations, these areas have been taken from residents, who -in addition- suffer from the extensive damage to the environment caused by these stations, which are polluting both the land and the sea.

Abandoned places in Sardinia: the radio station of Tempio Pausania urbex Italy

Moreover, these stations pose a huge danger to human health, both indirectly through environmental contamination and directly due to activities that trigger the release of nanoparticles (contaminated with thorium, uranium 238, etc.), exposure to which can cause serious birth deformities and leukemia.

Abandoned places in Sardinia: the radio station of Tempio Pausania urbex Italy

The abandoned radio station in Tempio Pausania is located on a panoramic location on top of an unspoiled mountain.

the view from the abandoned radio station of Tempio Pausania urbex Italy
Abandoned places in Sardinia: the radio station of Tempio Pausania urbex Italy

Eventually, locals rolled up their sleeves and cleaned after the soldiers (that’s basically what’s written on this shack, alongside an invitation to give back to Sardinians all the territories occupied by militaries); they are now waiting for proper decontamination, as the presence of lead, steel wool, copper, naphtha and other polluting substances has been detected in the area.

Federico Carta CRISA street art at the abandoned radio station of Tempio Pausania urbex Italy
Street art by Federico Carta (aka CRISA) at the abandoned radio station of Tempio Pausania

Find these abandoned places and many other cool spots in my Sardinia Google Map!

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Giulia BLocal street art travel

Ciao, my name is Giulia. I’m a writer specialised in street art and graffiti. Since 2011 I’ve been running this independent street art blog, which has been the media partner of major street art festivals across Europe. I was the Communication & Content Manager of Amsterdam’s STRAAT Museum and now I’m a freelance writer and content creator based in Rome. I work with creative enterprises and museums, and my writing has been published in street art catalogues and art publications. I also write "Beyond the Walls", a monthly newsletter of editorials and critical insights into the world of urban art, and in 2024 I launched the book series "As Seen on the Streets of…", an independent publishing project that captures the cities shaping the global street art movement through my personal experiences, in-depth research, and the voices of local street artists.

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