With 71 km of coasts between Capo Testa promontory at the west end and Capo Ferro at the east end, S. Teresa is located at far North of Sardinia, separated from Corsica by the Bocche di S. Bonifacio. As one of the most popular tourist locations, it can boast nuraghic origins (about 4000 B.C.) revealed by the Lu Brandali village, near S. Separata Bay where you can find the ruins of towers built with massive stones coming from the mountain peak overlooking the bay and the remains of a Tomba dei Giganti. Two early settlements, Longonis and Tibula, developed here after during roman domination: the first located in the little bay left of today’s port and the second at the end of the consular road to Olbia, in the area of Capo Testa, where you can still see the many ruins of ancient granite caves, used b the Romans to decorate their capital city’s palaces, including the Pantheon’s columns, and in later time, by the Pisans, for the Pisa’s Duomo. In the Middle age the Pisans founded the LONGOSARDO village, a strategic outpost to watch Corsica, ruled by Genoa.
Later on the Spanish built the Longosardo Catalan-Aragonese castle, and the 16th century tower, one of the most impressive built under the Spanish domination along the Sardinian coasts, from where you can enjoy a breathtaking sight as far as Corsica on clear days.
S. Teresa di Gallura was built in 1808 by the will of King Vittorio Emanuele I upon request by the piedmontese military commander Francesco Maria Magnon.
The kind himself designed the town plan in imitation of the kingdom’s capital city, Turin, naming it in honour of his wife Mary Theresa of Austria.
Starting from the 1960’s, the town has developed its tourist vocation showing off its territorial and naturalistic beauties.
The visit to the town centre develops around the two main squares (Piazza San Vittorio and Piazza Vittorio Emanuele) with streets set in a chessboard pattern around them.
Through Viale Maria Teresa you arrive at Piazza S. Vittorio with the homonymous church (1838), while on the right there is Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, crowded by the tourists in summer months, with many shops, restaurants and cafes; taking the Via XX Settembre promenade you reach the impressive Torre Longosardo built at the start of the XVI century by the Spanish, as part of a plan which includes 79 more tower spread in the island to watch over the sea access. Restored in the 1980s, it houses the Museo Civico.
From the town’s access street, turning right into Via Porto, you reach the Port, stretched out along a beautiful fiord, which you can reach also from the state road to Palau; the ferryboats to La Maddalena Archipelago and Bonifacio leave from its docks.