Supramonte of Sardinia 0 Comments
The complex of Supramonte, Sardinia’s core of Barbagia County, is about 130 km far and two hours drive from the Gabbiano Azzurro Hotel & Suites. Approaching by car, with the colourful oleanders streaming on both sides, the aura projected by the magnificence of Supramonte, an ancient setting where time seems to have a halt, enveloped my soul. Looking from the still countryside in the mountains, the green vegetation, the white rocks and the blue sky, I realized the irrelevance of human stature.
In the Supramonte area of Oliena, in the province of Nuoro, there is the most important spring of Sardinia, Su Gologone, which is pouring from a fissure in the calcareous rock. In the Orgosolo area, instead, you can reach the Gorropu Gorge, with its over 500 meters height, a deep canyon located in the Supramonte, the realm of the golden eagle, defining the borders between the municipalities of Orgosolo and Urzulei, formed by the intense erosive action caused by the Rio Flumineddu’s waters. Is considered one of the deepest canyons in Europe, hosting several Sardinian endemisms, among which the Gorropu Aquilegia, or else called "nuragic", a very rare endangered flora specimen.
The extraordinary beauty of the Supramonte is witnessed by Fabrizio D'Andrè (Italian singer-songwriter) who loved it, despite the kidnapping, and wanted to call it "Hotel" when he sang the unfortunate episode. Here is Sardinia’s heart, hard as granite and soft like the air you breathe here, scented by earth, flowers, grass and stone. Yes, the stone too has its own scent: is called petrichor, and is expressed when it gets wet by the first rain but also when it oozes from some plants in drought, and the soil and rocks are permeated by it. The "barbaricine" core of Sardinia was the refuge of its inhabitants during their constant resistance throughout the millennial struggle against the invaders who were approaching the coast and wanted to dominate them. Tiscali's Nuragic Village With "balentia" (valiantness) they have always determinedly resisted, contesting every form of State proposed from the outside and refusing any integration in the intent to keep their heritages uncontaminated, to the limits of law-breaking as expressed, in recent decades, by road signs spilt by bullets of all types…
But the true essence of Sardinian territory lives there.
Sardinia has a wonderful sea that we love and try to dwell when possible, but if, for one day, we decide to turn our backs to that wonder that God has given to Ichnusa, the island of the Great Green and the blue of the Lapis-Lazuli, as Sardinia was called by the ancient world, we could pass by from the summer of the coast to the barbaricine hinterland where seasons are alternating. As Salvatore Niffoi says: "Because as summer is giving legitimacy to the sea, winter is legitimating the mountains … in winter in Nuoro, in Barbagia..."
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A sas mammas de Barbagia
“O mammas chi accantu a sos nimigos filades
Pianghides, cosides, tessides e cantades
A bois su cantu meu, ardente isperanzosu
Che unu ragiu ’e sole potente e luminosu;
A bois pensamentosas mammas barbaricinas…”
(A.Casula Montanru)
To the Barbagia’s mothers
“O mothers spinning next to your enemies
You cry, sew, weave and sing.
To You my ardent song full of hope,
like a powerful and luminous ray of sunshine;
to You thoughtful barbaricine mothers ...”
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Written by Daniela Toti
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