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Sardinia: South to North

Italy · 14 stories · 3–4 days

Cagliari to Alghero the long way — 3,000 years of conquest on one hill, Bronze Age towers found nowhere else on Earth, a mountain town that paints its politics on its walls, and a coast invented in 1961.

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Stories along the way

  1. 1. Three Thousand Years, StackedStart at the bottom and look up. Above you, about a hundred metres higher than the rest of Cagliari, sits Castello — the walled quarter, pale limestone, towers at the corners, the…
  2. 2. The Mystery of SamatzaiLook at the town of Samatzai, sitting on the fringe of Sardinia’s Campidano plain, about thirty-three kilometers from Cagliari. At first glance, it might seem like a quiet…
  3. 3. The Slaughter at SanluriOn a quiet plain in central Sardinia, the local dialect still retains a grim name for the soil beneath your feet: s'occidroxiu — literally, "the slaughter." It was right here, on…
  4. 4. The Aragonese Conquest of SardiniaIn the early 1320s, if you were ambitious in the Western Mediterranean, Sardinia was the ultimate prize. It wasn’t just about the island's lucrative silver mines and salt;…
  5. 5. The Towers Nobody Else BuiltSixty kilometres north of Cagliari, in flat farmland, sits a thing that exists nowhere else on Earth. Not nowhere else in Italy. Nowhere else. Sardinia's nuraghi are megalithic…
  6. 6. Sardinia's Resilient Regional AirfieldImagine a quiet stretch of asphalt lapped by Highway 131 in central western Sardinia, right in the farming village of Fenosu, just three kilometers east of Oristano. Today, if you…
  7. 7. The Artisans of OraniHigh in the rugged heart of Sardinia’s Barbagia region, over five hundred meters above sea level at the foot of Mount Gonare, sits the town of Orani. Looking up toward the…
  8. 8. A Town That Answers BackThe road climbs, the fields give out, and you are in the Barbagia — historically the most isolated interior on the island, rough terrain, sparse settlements, and a long tradition…
  9. 9. The Sardinian AthensImagine a place where the language spoken in the street preserves the sounds of ancient Latin more faithfully than anywhere else on Earth. This is Nuoro, a high-altitude town…
  10. 10. The Valley of the TombsIn the municipality of Dorgali, in Nuoro, Italy, stands a monument from deep antiquity with a striking name: S’Ena ’e Thomes. Translated from the Sardinian language, it means the…
  11. 11. The Hollow Mountain of SardiniaLook up at the white, jagged limestone wall looming over north-eastern Sardinia. This is Monte Albo—a thirty-kilometer ridge of sheer vertical cliffs rising over eleven hundred…
  12. 12. Port of the GranaryImagine small wooden boats skimming across this quiet Sardinian bay, loaded to the brim with grain destined for the imperial tables of Rome. Today, San Giovanni di Posada is a…
  13. 13. An Invented CoastEverything you are about to see is younger than the people looking at it. In nineteen sixty-one, this stretch of the Gallura coast in Sardinia's northeast was largely uninhabited…
  14. 14. Little BarcelonaListen, when you get out of the car. If you catch a conversation between two older people in the old town, there is a decent chance you will not be hearing Italian, and you will…