The tower closing the horizon at La Pelosa is older than the beach as a place to swim: a truncated cone of local schist, sixteen metres across at the base and ten high, raised on the islet off Capo Falcone before 1578 to watch the channel towards Asinara. Its hatch sits six metres above the ground and was reached by rope ladders; inside, an alcaide, a gunner and three or four soldiers kept watch with three heavy cannon and a swivel gun. It was decommissioned in 1846. The village that now brings bathers here did not yet exist: Stintino was born in 1885, when forty-five families of fishermen and shepherds had to leave Asinara because the government was installing a quarantine station and a penal colony there.
What to see
The sand is very white and very fine, the bottom stays shallow for tens of metres and the water holds a turquoise usually found much further south. Ahead lie the Gulf of Asinara and the island of the same name, protected by the national park created in 1997, for which Stintino is the closest embarkation point. To the right, past a tongue of sand, are the small beach of La Pelosetta and the islet with the tower, which the town put on its coat of arms alongside a lateen sail.
The coast around changes character quickly. Westward begins the “mare di fuori”, the side exposed to the Sardinian Sea, with cliffs and coves of sand and stone at the foot of small valleys: Biggiu Marinu, the “sea ox”, the Sardinian name for the monk seal, also known as Valle della Luna, then Coscia di Donna and Cala del Vapore. On the sheltered eastern side come the beaches of Le Saline, Ezzi Mannu, Pazzona and Punta Negra.
Visiting
Numbers are high enough that access runs on booking: reserve your place before you set off, or you will be turned away. You come in on the road running from Stintino towards Capo Falcone, a handful of kilometres, and the car parks are paid and far enough from the water to discourage heavy luggage. There is no natural shade. If you want an empty sea, arrive early in the morning or turn up late in the afternoon, when the low light across the shallows is also the best for photographs. Three kilometres from the village, the Casaraccio lagoon is a breeding reserve for birdlife and is worth a stop on the way in.
Our editors' tip
We end the afternoon at Stintino harbour rather than on the sand. At the tuna-fishery museum, opened in 2016 on the quay, the story of this stretch of coast is told through the nets and ledgers of the fishermen's cooperative founded in 1904 by sixty-eight local members. Then you eat octopus the Stintino way and watch the lateen-rigged boats come in, which here are not decoration for visitors.
