Sinis Peninsula

Is Arutas and neighbouring beaches on the Sinis are made of rounded quartz grains rather than ordinary sand, white to pink and green, produced by the erosion of local rock; removal is illegal and enforced with fines, since decades of visitors taking handfuls depleted them. At the peninsula's tip stands Tharros, a Phoenician city later Roman, with columns and street grids on a headland. The Cabras lagoon behind produces bottarga, the salted and dried roe of grey mullet, a local staple. At Mont'e Prama, over five thousand fragments found from 1974 were reassembled into large stone statues of archers and boxers.

What you actually see

• The quartz beaches - shores of rounded grains rather than sand.
• Tharros - a Phoenician and Roman city on the headland.
• The Mont'e Prama giants - large prehistoric stone statues reassembled from fragments.
• The bottarga - dried mullet roe from the Cabras lagoon.

When to go

May to September for the beaches; Tharros is exposed and hot in high summer. The statues are displayed in Cabras and Cagliari museums.

Honest expectations

Taking the quartz is illegal and fined, and shoes are restricted on some beaches. Parking is paid and capped. Tharros has no shade.

Nearby

Oristano lies east; Bosa is north up the coast.