Sardinia Report

Tight and colorful in Bosa

The kids had two weeks off for Easter, so we decided to take one of those weeks and jump cheap flights to Sardinia where we could experience some amazing Catholic Easter celebrations, along with mountains to hike and sunny beach time to shake off Berlin's winter doldrums.

Because we are lame, and do not write long witty commentaries anymore, we are just throwing some pics online and adding in quick captions. Please forgive us for this.

For starters: Walking the jetty next to fishing boats in Bosa, a small port town on the western side of the island.

Street strolling nets you the most amazing sights!

Relaxing.

Huge sandy beach all to ourselves. There are only 20 full time residents in Porto Alabe and we may have seen two of them.

Then you get these wonderful sunsets..!

A watchtower from the Nuraghe times, a pre-Phoenician culture that thrived on the island around 1000 BC. These towers are sprinkled all around and it really is amazing they still stand after so much time and events have overtaken the place.

Another tower! Spotted.

Jay logged a 58 km ride around the countryside. Lots of winding little roads bordered by rock walls of limestone dug up out of the dirt over the centuries.

Just down from our house was this bunker, probably placed during WWII German occupation of the island.

Sunset pasta and Moretti on the Terraza. It was a bit windy but the circumstances of it lets you overlook such trivialities.

There was a little trail than wound down to the beach from the backyard, just what we hoped for with the kids. Beach access without having to cross any street with Italian drivers!

Cass chats with the waiter for tips on Bosa.

These appear on walls all over Bosa: former tomato sauce cans turned into wall sconces with succulents. Love them!

Following the procession from the small cathedral thru Bosa's rainy alleyways to the other cathedral across town. The red-clad priests at the head of the group carried the Jesus statue, everyone else carried umbrellas.

The Ethnological Museum in Nuoro, the town we stayed in after leaving the beach. These are preserved forms of bread that are made by locals - there is a tremendous history of bread and religion intertwined on the island. Every major Catholic event is accompanied with its own bread theme.

Here's the granite block I pushed into the parking lot unwittingly with the door of the rental car.

We've spent too much time in the car!! 

The day after we stopped in Nuoro it was Easter Sunday. We had heard about a little mountain town called Oliena that had a raucous Easter celebration. On Sunday we arose and drove up to Oliena to experience Easter in the mountains of Sardinia.

This is from a travel website that I am too lazy to cite:

Easter in Sardinia

Oliena and the Rite of the Encounter
Holy Week rites in Sardinia are particularly evocative, the most peculiar of which is the rite of S'Incontru, the Encounter, in Oliena. 

Oliena lies on the margins of the historic region of Barbagia di Ollolai, 6.2 mi from Nuoro and Monte Ortobene. 

During the rite, a group of women detach the statue of Christ from the Cross, and in the following days, men and women both seek out Christ Resurrected, stopping in all the churches of the town until Saturday, when the statue is rediscovered. 

On Easter Sunday a simulacrum of the Madonna searches for Christ, and finally encounters him after two processions through the town. 

All participants in the event wear the typical dress of Oliena, while citizens observe this unique reenactment of the Resurrection from the stands. 

In the moment when Christ and the Madonna meet, the celebration intensifies and, at the end of the procession, the two simulacrums are returned to the church for Easter Mass. 

Murals are also realized for the Encounter, with magnificent depictions pertaining to Oliena’s traditions. 

Everyone gathers in the square. Sprigs of rosemary are laid out in a path down the middle.

Girls chat photogenically.

Guys (and girls) pass ammunition in baskets. The island has a long hunting tradition, so everyone seems to have a 12 gauge. People line the rooftops and the churchyard. The idea is that you make a lot of noise to A. celebrate the incontru of Mary and Jesus and B. scare away evil spirits.

The shooting starts long before the two statues meet in front of the bell tower. We are 90% sure they are using blanks, but you could still hear things pelting down on the terra cotta rooftops occasionally. The noise when the statues meet is tremendous, the reports echoing back and forth around the close walls of the old town.

A video of what this scene looked and sounded like.


Another video: close-ups of the shooters in front of church.

All in all, the visuals were crazy: clusters of men (some women) on rooftops, heavily armed, and firing continuously. Spent plastic shotgun shells and brass bullet casings drifting down and bouncing off the pavement around us. Deafening roar as the firing ebbed and flowed in a strange rythym as people stopped to reload. Stern-faced grandmas loading up their Benellis and Franchis in ernst. In the midst of all that were these super colorful and authentic outfits on everybody, girls giggling to each other, Catholic priests solemnly parading with the statues of the Virgin Mary and Christ.

Afterwards, instead of an Easter Egg hunt, the kids filled their pockets with spent shell casings. We're not going to forget this Easter for awhile.

Wonderful outfits on everyone. For it being 2018 and Europe, this was a very untouristy affair and we may have won the prize for being the only Americans in the town. (according to us of course). After the racket, everyone goes around the corner to the string of cafes stretching up the street and sits down with their friends to order their Aperol Spritzes, a fizzy and bitter cocktail.

Afterwards the expended ammo carpets the park.

After the Easter fireworks we drove out of town and starting hiking up what became an access road to a little goat farm perched on the mountainside. Off the road there was no trail but plenty of karst limestone boulders to scramble up. Halfway through the hike we encountered the goat herd coming back down (by themselves) from their grazing areas and making for the little farm.

Oh my, forgot what mountain bushwhacking was all about!

No Parking!

Main ramparts of San Remo, on top of the hill fortress of Cagliari's Castello section. Invaders over the centuries have come and gone repeatedly so most of the coastal towns are replete with their medieval (and earlier) walls, castles and defenses.

The kids love candle-lighting in Europe's cathedrals. Here, Michael the Archangel casts down the rebel angels.

Half-restored Roman ampitheatre in Cagliari. You can still see where they kept the lions and the prisoners before running out to greet their death. Sobering.

Cagliari Botanical Gardens has two new groundskeepers.

"Get the Army's coke bases out of Sardinia"

Another classic trip for the history books. We feel quite lucky to be able to check out interesting places like this. It is starting to become addicting.

Tharros, an extensive Roman site at the end of the Sinis Peninsula, on Sardinia's western shore.