Farewell, Sardinia

Tharros

 Tharros, the most important city of Phoenician Sardinia in 600 BC, stands against a windy hill between a peaceful and a beating shore of the Gulf of Oristano. It has at least four mighty temples, one to Demeter, and three thermes (hot healing baths) were used by Phoenicians, Carthaginians, and then the Romans. At sunset the wind is high and the water pounds a pale sandy beach. A Nuraghic village preceded Tharros on this remote tip of land, where sea gulls hang suspended in the strong wind. There was a tophet here, too.

Tharros

Two joggers have gone down to the water with some of the stray dogs that linger around here, but the sweet-faced retriever lies down in the cooling shadows as we walk the Phoenician village after hours.

At this beautiful cape with its Spanish tower mounted on velvet twists of the rocky hill, we complete our viaggia. We are finishing a little ahead of schedule, but I am so tired.

Spanish tower

On our journey the Nuraghe have captivated us most, and the rough proud land that insists on its own destiny. Within the brown stones of the prehistoric towers is a stillness that anchors one's being. Brown round stones, by the tonnage, piled high despite their inconceivable weight, surround you up to a high conical dome several meters high. A central tholos--the strange soaring ceiling of stones-- connects to the peripheral three or four towers, but the central tower is the one with the chill wind of a grotto. In these still thick stones the chamber tapers to a point, while the outside grows thicker, the chamber where the chieftain lived. Three thousand five hundred years ago these little people, who preserved their images in Giacometti-like bronzes, somehow wrestled such tonnage to build towers of up to 20 meters.

San Giovanni di Sinnis

Later stone-heavers were the Victorini monks, who around the millennium renovated the oldest church on the island, St. Giovanni di Sinis (540 AD), that stands outside Tharros. St. Giovanni had the simple Greek cross design of Byzantium, but the monks of Marseilles gave it an apse, making the shape of the building a more modern cross, though the outside still looks something like a hobbit dwelling. Two pigeons whir back and forth and complain of our presence in their haven of dense simplicity.

San Giovanni di Sinnis

Hiking the Devil's Saddle

Roman and WWII ruins

One of our last outings: a hike on the Devil's Saddle, a huge outcropping of calceous rock over the Poetto Beach where we have been staying. When Satan fell from heaven, his saddle fell here. We missed the path and took the periphery, a precipitous drop to our side into the indigo waters, finding our footing on white rock that suddenly seemed like a Roman road--it turned out it was. We came across a the ruins of a Roman fort and a WWII lookout that had been erected from the stone there to look like the crumbling Roman ruin. We came across a Roman well, as we trod the smooth white Roman road bed. All around us fragrance and brush, and then palm trees, and the exquisite blue against the stark white of the rock and beach. Far below two young men sunbathed nude. As we finished the treacherous uneven path, we encountered yet another Italian cyclist---about to do the crazy path on trailbike, as his girlfriend struggled behind.

On our last day out we saw the extensive Nuraghe Arrubiu, and I got my farewell embrace from a little wild cat filled with affection.

Like our affection, for this savage land. We'll miss you, Rebel Island.