Sardinian Towns

We've promised you a report on Sardinian towns for a couple of weeks, and now you are finally going to get it.  So far, we've only visited towns within an hour or so of our house - since we come home everyday night to take care of the owner's two dogs.. Later on, we'll cover some more towns as we are able to tour farther afield. However, even with this limitation, we've already seen quite a lot of towns, and seen a lot of interesting thing there, so we do have the makings of a decent post.

First, to get some context, let's start with a map of Sardinia (above), taken from Wikipedia, that shows the various areas of Sardinia and many (but nearly all) of the towns, providing their names in both Italian and Sardu, which is the traditional language here, spoken in many dialects depending on the locality. Please note that, so far, we've only visited the three northern areas, and not nearly all of them.  Therefore, anything we say here does not necessarily apply to, say, the southern coast, which is dominated by Cagliari, a substantial urban area (about a half-million souls) with a completely different economic, social and cultural dynamic.

Anyway, except for the towns on the east coast near to our house, which we visit or pass through almost every day, most of our 'research' to date covers the middle part of the island - look slightly off-center to the northeast of the map above - loosely known as the Barbagia. As the name implies, the Barbagia is where the 'barbarians' live - that is, the native Sardinians who largely resisted the 'civilizing' efforts of various conquerors, starting with the Carthaginians and the Romans, and ending with the hordes of (mainly) Italian mainlanders who regularly 'invade' the beach areas (especially in the Costa Esmeralda in the far northeast) every summer.

Each of the towns we've visited has a different feel, but they tend to have a lot in common.  First of all, with the exception of Nuoro, the area's main city and a provincial capital, they are all quite small and feel very rural.  Often they are surrounded by mountains and quite hilly themselves, making for some very picturesque settings.  The rural areas between them are typically very 'empty' - nothing but mountains and pasture, with sheep in abundance. 

Sardinia - Foodie Heaven??

Most tourists probably think of Sardinia as a long, wide beach, with some mountains thrown in as scenic background.  So, if they think at all about the local cuisine, they no doubt imagine lots of fresh, local seafood.  That's there for the asking - along with all the standard Italian fare - especially in the resort towns, but it definitely isn't what the natives would consider real food.

You see, historically speaking, the native Sardinians spurned the ocean and the coast as manifestly dangerous and to be avoided at all costs.  Invaders came from the sea, and malaria stalked the coastal lagoons.  So the natives headed inland, into the fastness of the (mostly) granite mountains, and developed a hard-scrabble pastoral life largely disconnected from the sea. Despite what you might read on the tourist websites, the real Sardinia is not so much this:

as this:

Not surprisingly, this is also reflected in the core cuisine. Sheep - and to a lesser extent, goats - figure most prominently. This is much more for cheese than meat, since, as reliable purveyors of milk and wool, sheep are much more valuable alive than at the business end of a fork. It is beef and pork that fill out the 'secondo' portion of the menu, with a fair amount of cinghiale (wild boar) thrown in for good measure. Naturally, these also make for endless varieties of great sausage, with goes nicely with the endless selection of sheep cheeses.

To our minds, the penultimate of Sardinian sheep (and goat) cheese is ricotta, especially fresh ricotta. The ideal is to get it the same day it is made, if possible still warm, from a local shepherd. The taste must be experienced to be believed, and it's almost enough to consider making a new career choice (shepherd, of course!)  Next best is to buy it at the local cheese cooperative, also same-day fresh, but already refrigerated and typically shaped in the form you see below.  Anyway, some days we seem to live off the stuff, which is unlike any version of ricotta we've ever tried at home in America.  Also superb are the many varieties - often local specialities - of pressed, smoked, salted and cured ricotta.

Another important Sardinian food is a characteristic flatbread called 'pane carasau'. Today, Sardinia's shepherds zoom around the island's many paved highways in their ubiquitous beat-up Fiat Pandas, easily home for dinner no matter where the sheep may be roaming.  But not long ago, the shepherd's lot was to accompany the flock on foot, often way up in the mountains, and for days - or even weeks - at a time, far from home and hearth. For these trips, the light, crispy pane carasau was designed to last indefinitely, requiring only a light reheating over an open fire, a perhaps a brushing of olive oil, to bring its rich taste back to life. Combined with some (you guessed it) sheep's cheese and pork sausage, and doused with some Cannonau (Sardinia's most famous - and very strong - red wine), and our shepherd would certainly want for naught, at least in terms of basic sustenance.

Back at home, of course, there is no reason for Sardinians to limit themselves to flatbread, no matter how tasty.  Besides cranking out the usual assortment of ingenious local pastas, they indulged themselves in cranking out an impressive variety of  specialty 'festival' breads and pastries, many incredibly ornate (see below).   

Sardinia also provides its very own potion to enhance its love affair with pastry - honey. In the spring, summer and fall, the Sardinian maquis (scrub-land) is covered with an endless variety of wildflowers, supplemented by crops such as oranges, lemons, figs, almonds, walnut, and a number of potent herbs. Each provides a unique flavor to the honey produced during its main flowering period, and the Sardinian pastry chefs take full advantage of this tasty variety. Sorry, but we won't be able to tell you what our favorite pastries are until Lynnie tries them all :-).

As you might have guessed by now, veggies don't play a huge part in the Sardinian diet, although they are certainly available fresh off the farm everywhere you go, and certain ones - such a fava beans - are very popular.  One important exception is the carciofi (artichoke), for which Sardinia is justly famous, and which are available fresh everywhere.  We buy huge ones at the supermarket and steam them in the microwave - wow!  We also get them bottled in olive oil, and add them to the home-baked frittatas we make several times a week - yummy!

Well, we're pretty stuffed right now just thinking about all that food - aren't you?? Time to go shopping for more :-)

P.S.  If you want to learn more about Sardinian food and country lifestyle - albeit in a frenetic form that is decidedly un-Sardinian - take a look at the Sardinia episode of Anthony Bourdain's 'No Reservations' TV series.  Turns out Bourdain married a Sardinian, so he gets something of an inside scoop from his in-laws.

How on Earth??

So, perhaps you are wondering just how we happened to come to Sardinia, of all places, for our honeymoon. Or how we ended up spending it housesitting with two doggies in the middle of the countryside during the tourist off-season.  Well, we often wonder about that, too!  It's a long story, but, in the interest of time, here's a somewhat abbreviated version.

A couple of years ago, we started to look at a website called Sabbaticalhomes.com. It is similar to other home exchange/rental/sitting sites, except that it is oriented to academics who are often going away for an entire semester, summer or academic year, instead of just a two- or three-week vacation.  Also, people are typically listing their own homes, rather than a conventional vacation rental. And, since they are academics, those homes often have unique architectural features, are filled with interesting books and art, and/or are in cool locations.

Last fall - it now seems like years ago! - we saw a listing for a home in Sardinia owned by a lady named Cinzia who is a language instructor (English and Italian) on cruise ships.  As such, Cinzia regularly travels for long periods, and needs someone to mind her household, which includes two dogs and a garden (see picture below).  For short trips, she can rely on local friends and family, but for long voyages, like the five-month one to Asia she is on now, Cinzia needs to find people like us to house-sit.

Of course, none of that explains why we agreed to come to the 'middle of nowhere' on an off-beat island that almost nobody we knew could find on a map. Or why we were willing to stay put for several months in somebody else's personal residence. In fact, we were actually in extended negotiations with a number of other promising home rental prospects across Europe that, for various reasons, didn't end up working out.  And, of course, we could have decided just to travel around Europe, staying at a series of nice hotels and resorts in the usual famous places, exactly like we were on a respectable honeymoon.

But somehow we kept coming back to the idea of staying in one place, and in a real home that would give us the feeling of actually living in a foreign country, instead of just visiting it. In this light, the apparent disadvantages of the arrangement at Cinzia's actually became advantages. We would be able to really settle in, get to know the neighborhood like a native, travel around without any real time constraints, etc. etc.  And our location, close to the beach and mountains, with crystal air and sky, and virtually no other tourists, would facilitate those famous long, romantic walks that bespeak of a very private and passionate honeymoon hideaway.  With those bewitching stars in our eyes to guide us, we were carried forward to our current fate.

Even so, it took months to make the final decision, and more months to work out the details - and we've got a GMail file four pages long to prove it! Cinzia's voyage schedule was changed several times by her management without much warning, but fortunately we were flexible enough to adapt.  Our own schedule changed as well, as we postponed our marriage date to accommodate various relatives, and finally decided to just to get married quietly and put off our formal celebration until we got back from our honeymoon.  Anyway, after months of hemming and hawing all around, by mid-January we finally had real dates under our belt, swallowed hard, and bought our plane tickets.

So, you are probably wondering, how has it all worked out for the two starry-eyed lovebirds?  Well, the final verdict of course awaits our completing the trip and heading home but.... so far so good!

There were - and still are - some annoying problems with the house, including some occasional strange smells, armies of ants around the perimeter of the house, and incredible potholes in the local road. And, it has taken us awhile to find the best places to shop for those things we know exactly where to find at home. But even those annoyances are generally trumped by the coziness of being somewhere that has been furnished and decorated to be a real home, complete with two friendly dogs always hanging around who love nothing better than to be cuddled and petted (see below).

Also, it can sometimes be a little isolating to be stuck out in the country, especially in bad weather.  In this respect, however, it is not all that different from our digs at home, except there we have more friends to hang out with.  But, on nice days, we have magnificent views of the mountains all around Cinzia's house, and we are a very short drive from the beach, the mountains and many picturesque small towns. Cinzia also took pains to get us in touch with some of her numerous family and friends, and, as we've documented earlier, already had two visits by friends from mainland Italy, so we haven't ever been lonely for long.

Actually, our biggest single issue is probably the language gap. We had hoped to spend more time, both before and during the trip, learning Italian.  For basic travel, of course, only a smattering of 'shopping/eating Italian' is really necessary.  However, to actually engage people, carry on meaningful conversations, and really understand what's going on around us requires a lot more proficiency than we are likely to gain on what is still a relatively short foray into foreign living.  We'll just have to accept that gap for now, and wait for an opportunity to spend even more time abroad in order to master one or more languages - probably at least a year in each case.

The real test of this trip is of course whether we are enjoying it as a honeymoon.  In that regard, the good news is that, with the stress of regular travel removed, we certainly are having a lot of low-stress time together, with lots of opportunities to share new and unique experiences, enjoy nature, and to have some plain old fun. Also, we are punctuating our long stay in rural Sardinia with time in more sophisticated places - Tuscany up front, and Piemonte at the tail end.  We'll have plenty to remember about this honeymoon, that's for sure!

Finally, we thank our lucky stars that we even have the opportunity to take this much time away for our honeymoon. Most people only have a week or two squeezed into a tight schedule around work and family.  Even people who have the time and wherewithal are afraid to leave their home for so long - many thanks to our wonderful housesitter, Abby Morgan, our loyal gardener, Marie Tomlan, and our stellar handywoman, Laura Ventura, for helping to make this trip possible. And, of course, thanks to Cinzia and her boyfriend Giancarlo for making their lovely home available, so we could have this unique experience.

Wandering Through The Very Center of Middle Earth

Sardinia sits in the middle of the Western Mediterranean, and, as it name implies, that ocean sits in the middle of the Earth - at least in the view of our Euro-centric ancestors.  So, what lay in the deep, mountainous interior of Sardinia must have seemed like the very center of Middle Earth.  And, indeed, it was a Tolkien-like world inhabited for at least 10000 years by a very sophisticated civilization of which little is now known, but which has been immortalized by the massive towers, altars, tombs and surrounding villages - all built of stone - that litter the landscape to this day.


Today that area is called Barbagia, the land of the barbarians - the part of Sardinia never fully conquered by either the Carthaginians, the first historical masters of the island, or the Romans who soon followed.  Later authorities didn't have much luck either, right up to the present.


Even within very insular Sardinia, this area remains legendary for its independent streak. Barbagians hold fast to ways of their very own, a culture more steeped in rituals stretching back to the Neolithic era than any of more modern times. The dominant language is Sardo, a tongue so ancient that it has much more in common with Latin than modern Italian.  Ironically, it's also the area of the island commonly associated with the most internationally famous of Sardinian writers and artists - Deledda, Nivola, and Delitala - many internationally known, who drew deeply upon this ancient culture for their inspiration, even as they fled its chronically harsh poverty and insularity.


Today Barbagians have it quite a bit better. Modern transport, communication and conveniences - plus Italy's generous social safety net - have taken the harsh edge off daily agrarian life. Also, the international popularity of Sardinia's famed Pecorino cheeses has significantly bolstered the economics of the formerly subsistence-only shepherding business. Meanwhile, they get to keep their pristine mountains and rivers, and their unhurried existence in the least densely populated place in western Europe.  

Recently, Barbagians have also become more willing to share their traditional folk arts with outside tourists, who increasingly flock to Barbagia's many and varied local festivals and patronize the local artists and musicians.  Some of the internationally known ones include the haunting Tenores di Bitti, the mythic masks of Mamoiada, and the powerful murales of Orgosolo.  We'll tell you more about our visits to specific Barbagian towns in later posts.

A Day to Chill on the Beach

We promised this post would be about the Barbagia, a relatively remote area in the interior of Sardinia. By now, we've visited about a dozen towns in the Barbagia, and have a lot to write about. However, we decided to put that off a day or two.  Instead, today we decided stay closer to home and take a stroll to our nearby beach via a little-used 'percorso naturale' - nature walk - that starts near our house. It was a lovely day - a little overcast, but pleasantly warm, and with wildflowers and blossoms blooming everywhere.

The nature walk runs through a nature reserve that encompasses several lagoons, a pineta (beach pine) forest, ending at a white sand beach some ten kilometers long.  It passes a number of farms growing everything from oranges to artichokes to wine grapes, and inhabited by various collections of apparently very contented sheep, goats, cattle, and some enormous pigs.

The walk also offers gorgeous views of Posada, a colorful hill town spiraling up from the coastal plain, reaching towards the spectacular pinnacle of its iconic castle tower. We've seen similar views of Posada driving around the area, but somehow seeing it on foot, framed by the beach and lagoons, created an even more evocative scene.We almost felt like pilgrims meekly approaching a powerful shrine.

One thing we didn't pass on our nature walk were any other hikers. We saw a couple of bicyclists on a nearby road,  and, once we got to the beach, we waved to a few people fishing from the shore right at the end of the trail. But, once we starting hiking down the beach, all we heard was the lapping of the waves, and all we saw was an uninterrupted and unpeopled panorama of the glowingly white beach and the glistening sea, with the dark green pineta trees framing the scene.

We decided to walk back by a different route, walking through the sand dunes and pineta forest to a different road which reach the beach about a half-mile down the coast.  As soon moved inland just a few yards into the sand dunes, the sea noises quickly ceased and we were greeted with the sounds of the lagoon, mostly chirping birds, insects and frogs.  It was a great lesson in how very different micro-environments can coexist in very close proximity.

Getting to Know You, Sardinia

Wow, nearly two weeks have passed since our last post - where does the time go??!! Guess we are still having fun :-)

When we last wrote, it was just before Easter, and we were just getting settled in our digs outside of La Caletta, a sleepy (in the off-season) beach town and fishing port. Since then, we've been able to explore our immediate environs quite a bit more, and to also branch out to some nearby areas.  We've also acted a tour guides for two sets of friends visiting from Torino.

Meanwhile La Caletta, Santa Lucia (just down the road - here's a picture of its seaside Moorish tower) and other nearby beach towns have started to come to life since the Easter weekend, which seems to mark the very beginning of the tourist season. No crowds yet - really, almost nobody! - and the weather is too cool for swimming or sunning, but many of the shops and restaurants that were previously shuttered for the winter are now tentatively opening up.

So, almost every day we discover something new in La Caletta and Santa Lucia, and some places are really first class. For example, there is a wonderful pastry, wine, and olive oil shop in La Caletta called 'Sos Pipitos,' tucked back behind the old port, which has local and homemade products as good or better than any we've sampled farther afield. Turns out they have already won a Slow Food award - who knew! Close by is an excellent fish restaurant, 'Meloni e Fresu,' which would probably qualify for its own award, and has the added advantages of a lovely courtyard and a view over the beach (see photo above of our friends Kiki and Dario at Meloni, and also be sure to check out their own very cool bed and breakfast near Turin).

In Santa Lucia, we dined with our old friends from Ivrea - Diego, Gessica, and their lovely daughters Chiara and Simona - at a very traditional Sardinian agriturismo, 'Sa Corte', just steps from the beach. This also turned out to be a birthday lunch for Michael - can you believe how old he's getting :-). Anyway, we feasted on their home-raised lamb, homemade Sardinian flatbread, and homegrown artichokes - heaven!

As we mentioned before, we are also quite near two small cities, Posada and Siniscola, both quite ancient and atmospheric, but each quite different. Posada is the more blatantly picturesque, with a soaring iconic castle - Castello della Fava - overlooking the sea, backed by mountains, perched in the middle of a small but beautifully restored and very quaint medieval hilltown. After lunch, we took Diego and family there for a climb to the top (see pictures directly below).




Much larger Siniscola lacks any truly iconic monuments, but makes up for this with a rabbit-warren of winding streets, ancient stone buildings, and a much more active commercial center. Here we buy our luscious sheeps-milk ricotta and scrumptious aged pecorino cheese.

In the next post, we'll tell you about some cities and sights in the Barbagia, far from the beach, and right in the center of traditional Sardinian culture.

Getting to Sardinia

Written: April 2, 2010

Yes, it's been nearly a month since we left the US for our Italian honeymoon and we apologize that this is our first real trip report. You probably wondered if we had fallen off the planet. We'll try to do better from now on :-).

For now, a quick update. We arrived at our first destination, Barga, with no serious glitches, flying into Pisa via London. Our friends there - Tom and Julia Gabbay - graciously lent us a spare apartment they keep in the historic center, which is a completely intact medieval hill town surrounded by mountains - the Apuans (where Carrera marble is quarried) to the west, and the Appeninnes (the central spine of Italy) to the east.. This was a very beautiful start for us and, after a week, we were largely over jet lag and wanted to stay forever. We wandered about the crooked lanes, hung around the cafes, and took long walks into the sparkling countryside.

We also got to spend some time in lovely Lucca, a beautiful and very laid-back renaissance town with a number of noteworthy buildings, including a delightful mini-Duomo, graced below by the delightful Miss Lynnie.

In addition, Lucca's entire town wall is completely intact, with the top now a wonderful circular park beloved of walkers, cyclists and, of course, tourists - it offers delicious glimpses into this precious town from a unique perspective (see below).

After a week, however, we decided to squeeze in a week-long side-trip to Florence, largely because Lynnie had never been there before. After our quiet, bucolic week in Barga, bustling, touristy Florence - even in the off-season - was a bit of a shock. Fortunately, we were able to rent a small but cozy apartment in an old palazzo in a quiet neighborhood at the edge of the pedestrian center, which meant we could easily walk to all the sights and events, but also quickly escape the crowds as needed. We managed to take in the Uffizi, the Strozzi - fabulous special exhibits - and the Accademia.  We also attended a couple of interesting concerts, visited some smaller museums, and strolled around a good deal of the historic center.

Finally, we managed to squeeze in a wonderful overnight in nearby Fiesole, another lovely Tuscan hillltown, staying over one night at the very traditional Pensione Bencista, which we highly recommend. In addition to being wonderfully comfortable and rigorously traditional, it sports a one-of-a-kind view overlooking downtown Florence (look for the famous Duomo to the far left in the background of the picture below).

Finally, we were ready to fly to Sardinia, our main destination. There we were picked up at the Alghero airport by Giancarlo, the boyfriend of Cinzia, our hostess, and taken back to our new home outside of La Caletta, a small fishing port and beach resort on the east coast. The two-bedroom cottage sits in a lovely valley, encircled by mountains and surrounded by small farms, with about a half-acre of its own land. It's just a quick drive - or a long walk - from several long and very beautiful white-sand beaches.

In the summer, this is a tourist mecca. Right now, however, there are almost no tourists and not very many residents either - sometimes it feels like we are on a deserted island all by ourselves! When we do want some human contact, we wander into one of the many sleepy villages and small towns sprinkled around and hang around the 'centro storico' sipping a cafe latte at some vintage cafe - tough life :-).

For food, we've mostly been shopping at local groceries, farm stands, and agriturismos (farms with rooms, restaurants and/or food shops), and then cooking/eating at home. The local cheese, meat, fish, honey and fruit are great. If we do need something more, there's a big mall (by Sardinian standards) in Olbia, about a 30-minute drive north but, so far, we've only been there once, and we're not rushing back. :-)

At this point, we've only been in Sardinia about 10 days, but we've already seen some very beautiful areas. The island is quite mountainous, with very little flat area, and most of this tucked away in small inland valleys. As a result, there is only one really large population center, Cagliari, which is about 3 hours away in a larger valley at the southern end of the island, which we haven't visited yet. Otherwise, the island is very rural. Even the biggest towns up here in the north - Sassari, Nuoro, Olbia - have a very laid-back feel, and are surrounded by huge natural areas. Along the northeast coast, there is a touristy feel to many of the towns and beach areas, but, once you go even a few minutes inland, this largely disappears. And, even along the coast, there are large areas with almost no development, and with corresponding long, empty beaches that don't fill up even in the summer.

Despite their reputation among mainland Italians for being standoffish, the Sardinians we have met have been very friendly. They have a very distinct culture and attitude compared to Italian mainlanders, and even speak their own language called 'Sardo', which is more a dialect of Latin, and not directly related to Italian. Our best guess is that their reputation as standoffish is due to their very understandable reaction to the hordes of rowdy Italian tourists who descend on the beach areas in July and August.

As tourists, we are lucky to be in staying in a real Sardinian house, and have contact with real Sardinians through Cinzia and her boyfriend Carlo (see his photo with Michael below). For example, Cinzia's brother, Elio, is a well-known artist in nearby Nuoro, with a particular interest in documenting local folk cultures, so he has contacts all over the island. Also, our nearest neighbor across the street, Giovanni, is the former area police chief, and of course knows everyone in the area.

In general, everyone we meet here - natives and tourists - are usually surprised to find out that we are Americans, as hardly any Americans ever visit here, even during the tourist season. The overwhelming number of tourists are Italian, with a smattering of French, German, and Spanish visitors. The majority of the off-season tourists we have run into so far are German, who apparently come down to enjoy an early spring. We also have met a number of mainland Italians who have moved here year-round to enjoy the relaxed, rural lifestyle.

So far the weather has been wonderful. We had a few rainy, foggy days when we arrived, but now it is sunny everyday, but still cool enough (low-to-mid 60Fs) to allow us to hike around in mid-day without getting overheated. Spring has definitely sprung, and there are wildflowers and blossoms everywhere. The air is heavenly - full of flowery scents and completely clean, even in the towns. That is partly because the island tends to be a bit windy this time of year.

Anyway, that's probably more information than you want in one sitting, so we'll save the rest for later....

Ciao for now...