Sardinian Wonderland

When you come on my tours I hope you’ll feel as if you’ve tumbled down the rabbit hole into a Wonderland of strange language, landscapes, white rabbits, mad hatters and cheshire cats. Relax and bask in another culture. There will be many green bottles saying ‘DRINK ME’ and food saying ‘EAT ME’.

The strangest of my tours is Celebrating Sardinia. Sardinia is only barely Italy, so don’t assume because you’ve explored the mainland, you also know that bean-shaped island off its west coast.

The tour is timed to enjoy the festivities for the patron saint of Sardinia, Sant’Antioco. His tomb is in the cathedral of the town of Sant’Antioco on the island of the same name, now linked by a causeway to the southwest corner of the island of Sardinia. The celebration takes place two weeks after Easter.

Sant'Antioco from across the lagoon

Stefano Castello welcomes us with a tune on the launeddas, a bagpipe without a bag, found only on Sardinia. Notice his cheeks.

 The opening procession of the festival immerses you in the all-encompassing strangeness of the Sardinian Wonderland. There are many other traditional festivals in Italy, but here you have the sense of the past spilling over into the present. The fabric and needlework to make the costumes, the woodworking and decoration of the carts and the oxen which pull them, the music and the dance, all these skills were passed on to the present generation by parents and grandparents. They didn’t disappear only to be insecurely resurrected from hearsay, books and photos.

For the opening procession Sardinians come from the whole island in their individual village costumes and decorated oxcarts.

I think Sardinia is the only place where there are more sheep than humans. Giulio Basciu is one of the dwindling number of Sardinians living a traditional rural life.

Giulio makes pecorino with the milk of his own sheep.

Antonella Ajò learned to pot because she wanted to make ceramic models of every romanesque church in Sardinia. She achieved her goal, but having became addicted to the craft, she can’t stop.

Antonella is such a good teacher that even if you thought you couldn’t make anything, you’ll be surprised at your achievements.

Look what we made!

Something else you can only find here is bissu, a fibre made from the beard of a mollusc.

It shimmers like gold in the sunlight.

It used to be harvested from the bivalve Pinna nobilis, which was becoming extinct and was protected in 1992. Ariana Pintus has found another abundant shellfish whose beard has the same properties. It’s painstaking work cleaning and spinning the fibres.

Arianna carries on a tradition that many women of Sant’Antioco knew how to do.

It’s time for one of those green bottles with the ‘DRINK ME’ label.

Alberto uncorks the bubbly made by the classic champagne method in the winery of Sant’Antioco.

Not many places have salt pans you can visit to find out how salt gets from the sea to your table.

Look at that mountain of salt behind us!

Our guide Lisa (3rd from L) insists our tour isn’t complete without tasting her homemade limoncello.

You definitely won’t find delicious culurgiones anywhere else.

We made this potato-filled pasta shaped like ears of wheat. The flour was stone-ground old varieties of biodynamic grain.

For sure one of the highlights of the tour, and an experience it would be hard to find anywhere else, is making bread with Anna Marras and her friends. Antonella, the potter, told me about this group of retirees who amuse themselves by keeping alive their old traditions and teaching them to the young.

That’s Anna at the far end.

This is how you start.

Still a bit too young to learn, but she’s already got her party dress.

The men do the heavy work!

This porceddu (piglet) roast in a wood-fired oven definitely says ‘EAT ME’.

We were blown away by their hospitality.

I’d only asked for a bread lesson and we got a feast.

Three days into the tour fisherman Mauro Pintus, on whose boat we spend a blissful day on the lagoon, phoned to say he couldn’t do Wednesday, but how about Friday. The reason? For six months they’d had tickets for a pop concert in Milan, but he’d totally forgotten about it. I managed to swap Friday’s activities to Wednesday. And the weather was much better on Friday. Thank you pop concert!

Mauro reels in the net.

We congregate in Roberta’s galley for a preview. Her son Alessandro likes cooking better than fishing.

‘EAT ME’ is writ large here.

After an abundant lunch, we need a siesta.

On our last day we go to see another unique prehistoric Sardinian structure: a Bronze Age nuraghe built by a civilisation that endured from 1700 to 200 BC. They played the launeddas that Stefano demonstrated on the first day of our tour.

This is only the bottom half.

Spritz at a seafood shack.

The sun sets on a tour full of strange things and wonderful people.

I'm repeating this blog I wrote two years ago because, if it weren't for Covid-19, we would have been Celebrating Sardinia right now. Next year's tour is already confirmed, and there are only three places left. Why not join us for an extraordinary experience from 29 April to 8 May 2022? You'll find dates for 2023 and more details about the tour here.

If you can't wait until next year to travel to this Wonderland, the Giants of Sardinia tour takes place in October, by which time travel to Italy may be possible. If not, you may apply your deposit to another tour or have a refund.

If you landed here by chance and would like to be notified of future posts, you can sign up here http://eepurl.com/geSMLv

If you’d like periodic news about our tours and courses, sign up here http://eepurl.com/hVwz6

This blog was originally published on Slow Travel Tours on 28 June 2019.