Torre Argentina

Seven kilometres north of Bosa, a sixteenth-century watchtower stands above white limestone coves and a rocky islet called the island of the goats. The griffon vultures of Capo Marargiu haunt the horizon beyond it.

Why it matters

The north-west coast of Sardinia is strung with watchtowers, but few are set in country as strange and beautiful as this. The regional tourism portal describes Torre Argentina as a historic building that has dominated its headland since the late sixteenth century, raised for defensive purposes in the last decades of the sixteenth century to hold a small garrison with light armament. Its job was visual: from here the guards kept contact with the tower of Bosa to the south and, further along, the tower of Columbargia, relaying alarms along the coast. The austere history meets a striking geology: coves framed by white limestone cliffs scattered with basalt, flat reefs and a sea of intense cobalt blue. It is the wild counterpoint to the beaches of Bosa Marina.

What to notice

The tower stands on a promontory about seven kilometres from Bosa, with the rocky islet called isola de sas crabas — the islet of the goats — just offshore. Rosemary, myrtle, cistus and helichrysum cover the scrub behind it. Along the shore, basalt rocks and level reefs alternate with pale limestone cliffs; to the north the view reaches Capo Caccia, sa Pagliosa and the white trachyte cliffs above Bosa.

Context and history

Torre Argentina belongs to the defensive system that Spain's Aragonese and their successors built across the Sardinian coastline after repeated raids, when watchtowers communicated by smoke, flag and line of sight. The regional portal's dating — the final decades of the sixteenth century — puts it in the last great phase of that system, and its garrison of a few men with light weapons matches the standard arrangement: not a fortress, but an early-warning post. Its neighbours in the chain were chosen with care, the tower of Bosa covering the Temo mouth and the tower of Columbargia watching the shore to the south, so that no stretch of coast went unseen. With the threat gone, the tower survived as a landmark for fishermen and shepherds, and the coast around it remained roadless long enough to keep its coves wild. The wider setting includes the protected costa dei grifoni and the marine biopark of Capo Marargiu, about ten kilometres north, where griffon vultures, golden eagles and peregrine falcons ride the thermals above waters rich in marine life.