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14. Carbonia – Coal Museum, Serbariu Mine

Serbariu coal mine, active from 1937 to 1964, fuelled the economic growth of Sulcis and was one of the main energy resources in Italy between the 1930s and the 1950s. The complex has been restored and turned into a museum, which nowadays includes the Lamp Room, the underground tour and the Winch Room.

The Lamp Room houses a permanent exhibition on the history of coal, the mine and the town of Carbonia; it’s a large hall where visitors can admire a valuable collection of mine lamps, work tools, instruments and everyday objects, and see photographs, documents, period films and video interviews with miners. The underground tour shows the evolution of the coal mining techniques used in Serbariu from the 1930s until the mine shutdown. Here the guides lead visitors to a time travel experience in accurately reconstructed spaces enriched with old tools and machinery which were used in the past or that are still in use in coal mining. Included in the tour, the Winch Room preserves the original machine which allowed to manage the cages (lifts) up and down the shafts for coal and miners’ transport. The museum also includes a bookshop, a café and a conference room.

Superlatives:

- The Great Mine of Serbariu was the largest mine in Italy, with 18,000 employees (16,000 miners), 33 hectares on surface and 100 km of galleries.

- The Museo del Carbone is the main coal mining museum in Italy. It was the first fully managed mining site of Geomineral Historical and Environmental Park of Sardinia.

Useful Information:

Opening days and hours: from 21 June to 20 September: every day from 10.00am to 07.00 PM. Ticket office closes at 06.00 PM. From 21 September to 20 June: Tuesday to Sunday from 10.00 AM to 06.00 PM. Ticket office closes at 5.00 PM. Closed on Mondays (business days), Christmas and New Year‘s day. On 24 and 31 December open from 10.00 AM to 01.00 PM.

Recommended visit duration: 2 hours (underground tour + Lamp Room exhibition)

Disabled access: yes, for the museum

Facilities for children: yes

Picnic area: no

Gift shop: yes

Email: direzione@museodelcarbone.it

Phone: +39 0781 62727

Website: www.museodelcarbone.it

Address: Grande Miniera di Serbariu, 09013 Carbonia

Geolocation: 39.1591039937999, 8.511401143221711