Our second morning on Sardinia. Our today’s “target” was Punta Maggiore, 970 meters high mountain located near San Teodoro. Just like the previous track (and almost all following ones), it is described in guidebook “Sardinia: Rother Walking Guite”, written by Mithra Omidvar. We used the 3rd Czech issue of the book (from year 2003), where is this track listed as number 42.
During way to Punta Maggiore...
Journey to the starting point was shorter than the one to parking under Punte Cupeti. From camp we went north, passed Budoni and get on the highway on “Budoni” ramp. After few kilometers we left it on San Teodoro exit, but didn’t enter the town itself – on the first roundabout we turned right to the village of Budditogliu. On the first branching we turned right again, went under the highway and crossed the bridge, where the road changes into narrow gravel road. Then we continued in roughly the same direction along the river to our starting point, Stazzi Petrisconi.
We parked our car on the side of the road few tens of meters above Stazzi Petrisconi (some house or cottage, according to the guidebook it was gamekeeper’s house), and at 10:40 we set out for our hike. At first we had a little problem finding the track described in the guide. It took us some time, but finally it turned out to be easier than we thought – we just had to head down the very same gravel road, on which our car was parked.
Rocks, macchia, Tavolara Island, ...
After 1 km and about 20 minutes that we spent going in the wrong direction and then returning back, we started heading to south-south-west down the gravel road. After about 300 meters long descent we crossed a brook – the lowest point of our trip (349 m ASL) and started slowly gaining elevation. In the meantime narrow gravel road changed into a quite wide gravel path. The guide describes it as a forest path, that can be used also by cyclists on mountain bikes; however, reality is a little different. The path is damaged by a lot of various cracks (sometimes quite a deep ones), so that even walking there wasn’t sometimes very pleasent. Furthermore, there are no high trees around the path, just quite a low bushes that don’t provide enough cover against the sun. It’s no big deal in spring or autumn, but when we were there, it was more than 38ºC…
Around quarter to one we arrived to the saddle point at about 685 m ASL. There was an old rusty fence in front of us, behind that we could see the next valley and on the right side, summit of Punta Maggiore raised above us.
View from the highest point of our track...
We started ascending up along the fence. The ascent was very steep so we were gaining elevation very fast. At about 750 meters the steep part ended and we were standing on the small plain. From it, there was a very nice view of the coast near Olbia and San Teodoro. I liked the most especially the view of Tavolara Island – it’s just 5 km long and only 1 km wide, but its highest point is at 565 m ASL!
After we caught a breath after the steep ascent we continued in our way…
We got to the other side of fence (in one point it was possible to step over it) and started climbing up the rocks. However, we made a mistake and climbed a little to the left instead to the right and got to the top of crest in that point. From there we couldn’t continue, so we just enjoyed the view, took some photos and started returning back down. After descending down by a few meters we noticed the correct way, but since we were very tired (mainly thanks to the extremely hot weather) we decided to return back.
We arrived back at our car at 15:10, exhausted and very thirsty (even though just like the day before, we carried 9 litres of water with us). I liked the trip, despite the fact that we didn’t get to top. Even the hot was worth those beautiful views of the coast.
As usally, here’s a link to the GPX file containing the track record. I’d just want to stress out that all the following info is about the track that we went, it means that it contains all the detours mentioned in the previous text.
| Start/finish |
Main POI |
Distance |
Max. elevation |
Min. elevation |
Download link |
| Stazzi Petrisconi |
Point at 763 m ASL |
9 km |
763 m |
338 m |
link |
You can also look at the elevation diagram of the track (generated by GPS altimeter and processed by Garmin Basemap application). Please click to the miniature to see the diagram in a full size.
Elevation diagram - trip under Punta Maggiore and back
And last but not least here’s the list of some important waypoints. You can download all of them in one GPX file.
| Name |
Description |
Approx. Elev. |
Latitude |
Longitude |
| STAZZI PETRISCONI |
Parking place |
371 m |
N 40° 45.122′ |
E 9° 35.424′ |
| PLOT U PTA MAGGIORE |
Crossing the fence (still on the correct track to the top) |
747 m |
N 40° 43.904′ |
E 9° 35.067′ |
| NAS CIL U PTA MAGGIORE |
Place where we turned back (incorrect track) |
763 m |
N 40° 43.892′ |
E 9° 35.052′ |
Sardinia 2010 – Punta Maggiore (18th July)
Our second morning on Sardinia. Our today’s “target” was Punta Maggiore, 970 meters high mountain located near San Teodoro. Just like the previous track (and almost all following ones), it is described in guidebook “Sardinia: Rother Walking Guite”, written by Mithra Omidvar. We used the 3rd Czech issue of the book (from year 2003), where is this track listed as number 42.
During way to Punta Maggiore...
Journey to the starting point was shorter than the one to parking under Punte Cupeti. From camp we went north, passed Budoni and get on the highway on “Budoni” ramp. After few kilometers we left it on San Teodoro exit, but didn’t enter the town itself – on the first roundabout we turned right to the village of Budditogliu. On the first branching we turned right again, went under the highway and crossed the bridge, where the road changes into narrow gravel road. Then we continued in roughly the same direction along the river to our starting point, Stazzi Petrisconi.
We parked our car on the side of the road few tens of meters above Stazzi Petrisconi (some house or cottage, according to the guidebook it was gamekeeper’s house), and at 10:40 we set out for our hike. At first we had a little problem finding the track described in the guide. It took us some time, but finally it turned out to be easier than we thought – we just had to head down the very same gravel road, on which our car was parked.
Rocks, macchia, Tavolara Island, ...
After 1 km and about 20 minutes that we spent going in the wrong direction and then returning back, we started heading to south-south-west down the gravel road. After about 300 meters long descent we crossed a brook – the lowest point of our trip (349 m ASL) and started slowly gaining elevation. In the meantime narrow gravel road changed into a quite wide gravel path. The guide describes it as a forest path, that can be used also by cyclists on mountain bikes; however, reality is a little different. The path is damaged by a lot of various cracks (sometimes quite a deep ones), so that even walking there wasn’t sometimes very pleasent. Furthermore, there are no high trees around the path, just quite a low bushes that don’t provide enough cover against the sun. It’s no big deal in spring or autumn, but when we were there, it was more than 38ºC…
Around quarter to one we arrived to the saddle point at about 685 m ASL. There was an old rusty fence in front of us, behind that we could see the next valley and on the right side, summit of Punta Maggiore raised above us.
View from the highest point of our track...
We started ascending up along the fence. The ascent was very steep so we were gaining elevation very fast. At about 750 meters the steep part ended and we were standing on the small plain. From it, there was a very nice view of the coast near Olbia and San Teodoro. I liked the most especially the view of Tavolara Island – it’s just 5 km long and only 1 km wide, but its highest point is at 565 m ASL!
After we caught a breath after the steep ascent we continued in our way…
We got to the other side of fence (in one point it was possible to step over it) and started climbing up the rocks. However, we made a mistake and climbed a little to the left instead to the right and got to the top of crest in that point. From there we couldn’t continue, so we just enjoyed the view, took some photos and started returning back down. After descending down by a few meters we noticed the correct way, but since we were very tired (mainly thanks to the extremely hot weather) we decided to return back.
We arrived back at our car at 15:10, exhausted and very thirsty (even though just like the day before, we carried 9 litres of water with us). I liked the trip, despite the fact that we didn’t get to top. Even the hot was worth those beautiful views of the coast.
As usally, here’s a link to the GPX file containing the track record. I’d just want to stress out that all the following info is about the track that we went, it means that it contains all the detours mentioned in the previous text.
You can also look at the elevation diagram of the track (generated by GPS altimeter and processed by Garmin Basemap application). Please click to the miniature to see the diagram in a full size.
Elevation diagram - trip under Punta Maggiore and back
And last but not least here’s the list of some important waypoints. You can download all of them in one GPX file.