Ancient Sardinia Tour

Online Travel Diary

Hello dear friends, here we are with another of our online travel diaries, after our previous ones devoted to Scotttish, Apulian and Corsican ancient monuments. We hope you'll enjoy it!

First of all, there is a "new entry" in our trip: we are expecting a baby (Paola is in her 20th week of pregnancy), so there are two and a half of us travelling around this year. Be prepared to shorter diary's pages: we are often very tired in the evening.

We came to Sardinia by ferry Tuesday 24th October night, leaving the "Continent" (as Sardinians call mainland Italy) from Civitavecchia, not far from Rome. As usual, our Renault Twingo car will be our faithful travel mate.
Arrived in Olbia, in the northern part of Sardinia, we immediately began our megalithic explorations with the beautiful Tomba dei Giganti (Giant's Tomb) Su Monte 'e s'Ape and the pozzo sacro (Holy Well) Sa Testa

Then we drove to Arzachena, where we visited two of the best preserved Giant Tombs of Sardinia (Coddu Vecchiu and Li Lolghi) and the prehistoric necropolis of Li Muri. This area is particularly interesting from an archaeological point of view: we also walked to the nuraghe Albucciu ("nuraghe" is a truncated-conic tower with one or more internal rooms covered by a "tholos" or false dome) and to the small prehistoric temple Malchittu.

In the following week, in beautiful sunshine (we are still wearing T-shirts and leaving our jumpers in the car) we visited 34 ancient Sardinian sites.
Here is a list of our "Top Ten" so far (the megalithomaniacs will find also a list of all sites we visited, along with stunning panoramic views, into the "Images" page)

Sa Coveccada - The biggest dolmen in the Mediterranean area
Pascaredda - Beautiful Giant's Tomb in a peaceful cork-oaks wood
Sos Nurattolos - Prehistoric village and Holy place in a remote area. Nice walk in the middle of nowhere
Santu Antine - Gigantic and very well preserved nuraghe still standing 17m high
Campu Luntanu - Peculiar rock-cut tomb
Ladas - Nice small dolmen
Monte d'Accoddi - Sacred area north of Sassari. A kind of Ziggurat stepped pyramid surrounded by ritual stones: a tall standing stone, a spherical boulder with dozens of small cup marks, a big table for animal sacrifices
Sa Pedra 'e Taleri - Striking 4m tall standing stone
Losa - Gigantic nuraghe with a perfect false dome
Pedras Marmuradas - Six "Baethyles", conical standing stones representing males and females, usually found outside Sardinian Giant's Tombs.

Finally, two sites that are not megalithic, but are definitely worth a visit: Santa Trinità di Saccargia (little Romanesque church in isolated position). When we visited it, there were four people singing in latin inside: if God exists, he was there in that moment) and Sanna Museum in Sassari (many curious and fascinating findings from lots of ancient sites all around northern Sardinia. Some exemples: necklaces made of shells and fox teeth or of hunreds of snail shells; enigmatic decorated stones; beautiful small statuettes of the Mother Goddess; Nuragic little bronze figurines. Also splendid Punic and Roman glasses, jewels and mosaics and some Medieval arms and ceramics.

Sardinia is a wonderful place, not only for its sandy beaches assaulted by crowds of "Continentals" in summer or for its interesting archaeological sites. Sardinians are great people, noble and friendly at the same time. Theree are several co-operative societies of young people keeping the monuments open and clean. Even in October, not only in summer. Even animals are friendly: no bulls chasing us around - so far, but lots of kittens and doggies to welcome us.

Tonight we are sleeping in a nice hotel in Bonarcado, in the central western part of the isle. We had a super dinner with "Culurzones" (ravioli filled with smashed potatoes and fresh mint) and pork with a sauce of local white wine and olives. Now "bun in the oven" is moving a lot and our eyes are closing... Good night!