Hiking the Pedra Longa Trail in Santa Maria Navarrese - Baunei, Sardinia:
Back in May 2024 we spent a week exploring the island of Sardinia and one of the highlights of our trip was hiking the Pedra Longa Trail. As always, prior to our trip I was researching what to do, where to go etc. in Sardinia when I saw photos taken from (and of) the Pedra Longa trail and I instantly added it to our travel itinerary. I looked for accommodation in the area where the trail is located (on the west coast in Sardinia) and settled on an Airbnb apartment in the small town of Santa Maria Navarrese.
On the morning of the hike, we were blessed with great weather, it was warm with a blue sky and hardly a cloud to be seen! Jer left before me as he was running the route. When I set off a short time later I was following the route using a GPX I had uploaded in advance to my Garmin watch. I just brought my small hiking backpack with water, snacks and sun-cream (it was to be a hot day). First I had to walk from our Airbnb to the trail head.
Next to the trail head is the Santa Maria Panoramic Point (Punto Panoramico Santa Maria). If you don’t have to time to walk the whole trail, I think its definitely worth coming to this viewpoint - stunning!
While my route was approximately 12kms in total (as I was starting from, and returning to our accommodation, this added a little extra distance) but if you are counting from the true marked trail head/starting point in Santa Maria Navarrese, its closer to 9kms return.
Here is a photo of the gate/entrance to the trail. You can find the Google-maps location here:
Once I was on the trail it was pretty easy to follow. For the most part you are hugging the coast line and you can see the trail snaking along ahead of you. Not far along the trail I came to this trail sign:
Taking in the view!
Below, the left red arrow is pointing to the aforementioned Santa Maria Panoramic Point (where the trail entrance is) and the other red arrow, on the right, is pointing to the trail:
As you can see, there is little shade on the trail so keep this in mind when planning your hike especially if its during hot weather.
The trail is quite loose underfoot, with small stones so its quite likely you will “skid” and “slip” at some stage. If I was doing it again I would probably use walking poles as firstly I love them (I only had hand luggage allowance for this trip so couldn’t bring any unfortunately) and I would have felt more at ease especially on the sections that really hug the very steep hill side!
My walking speed was fairly slow as I had to keep stopping to take in the views:
I could never get sick of looking at the colour of the sea (it reminded me of Croatia and Greece) and it was crystal clear too. However, don’t be fooled, I later went for a swim at the beach next to our Airbnb in Santa Maria Navarrese and it was absolutely FREEZING!
Getting closer to Pedra Longa:
More photos, I think the photos from this distance away are better than those closer to the giant rock!
In this next photo, the arrow is point to the parking area at Pedra Longa as you can of course walk the route in the opposite direction too:
A while later I made it to Pedra Longa and decided to briefly check out the trail beyond (continuing North) and it too offered a stunning vista:
I would love to go back again and walk North, starting at Pedra Longa, to check out more of that trail. But for now, it was time to turn back and return to Santa Maria Navarrese. Once there, I was nice and sweaty so I quickly changed into a swimsuit at our Airbnb and headed for the beach (Spiaggia di Santa Maria Navarrese). As I already mentioned, I was not prepared for the water being so cold and neither were the other swimmers based on the cacophony of squeals and shouts from everyone upon entering the water. The water was so clear though and stones instead of sand which I adore as I hate sand. At least it was refreshing!
Overall we covered just shy of 12 kilometres with 481 metres of elevation on the route we took. A thoroughly enjoyable experience and a lovely morning of hiking in Sardinia.
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