Gallura: A Land Full Of Mysteries 0 Comments
Gabbiano Azzurro Hotel & Suites, is located in the northeast of Sardinia, more specifically in Gallura, a region of charm and mystery, rich in ancient finds and history.
Not far from the glamour of Porto Cervo: the heart of Costa Smeralda there is the real Sardinia, the ancient one, filled with myrtle, helichrysum, juniper and lavender scents, where the white streets take us up to the hills enabling us to enrich the soul with incomparable views.
Gallura extends from the province of Olbia-Tempio, which is its heart, including the Costa Smeralda up to the Maddalena archipelago, in the north-eastern part of the island; from the Coghinas river to Monte Nieddu in San Teodoro, bordering the Limbara massif, 1350 meters high. Inside are the municipalities of Arzachena, Luogosanto, Aggius and Tempio Pausania, where you can see the stazzi (from the Latin statio, the place where you rest), typical white house custodians of the archaic peasant life.
It is a land rich in granite rocks that have been moulded into smooth-edged reliefs that acquire singular shapes and it is fun to give them a resemblance, (see The Sardinian Stones). It's beyond words colours, the pink-grey of the granite, the seawater with spectacular transparencies, ranging from light to intense blue; the variegated green of the Mediterranean Scrub marked up by the reddish barks of the cork oaks, and the yellow of The Gorse - Genisteae that covers the valleys.
In the interior, the countryside, being more sheltered from the wind, is cultivated with cork oak woods (see The Cork), and with vines, where the precious Vermentino di Gallura originates, a DOCG wine produced in the province of Sassari, a straw-yellow wine with greenish reflections, with an intense and pleasant scent, and a dry-to-sweet taste.
The history of Gallura, amid legends and secrets, has ancient origins and is permeated by the mystery of its sinnos, the signs of a life not yet revealed in full. Its mysteries are called The Nuraghi: Ancient Heritage Of Sardinia, perhaps much more than the 7000 known so far disseminated all over Sardinia. There is still no unanimous clue on the function of the nuraghi, which has always been at the centre of controversies between historians and archaeologists. Did they have a military function? Were they simple watchtowers or monumental tombs? Sacred places, homes, animal shelters, workshops or astronomical observatories? But probably they were all that because it is very unlikely that 7000 different constructions all had the same function. Moreover there are the Tombs of the Giants, and the Treasures of magic origin: the "Janas" of Sardinia.
The following are the Gallura ones which we have already hosted here in our blog:
- Domus de Janas of Malghesi: a fairy house
- The Oschiri’s Rocky Altar Of Santo Stefano
- Nuragic Archeosite La Prisgiona
- The Megalithic Circle: Li Muri
But there are many others which we will soon write about. Full of mystery is also the valley of the moon, in Aggius: a fascinating arid area of stones also called the "big stones valley”, where the gigantic blocks of stone that rise from the plain, shaped over the course of the millennia by wind and rain make us feel projected into a lunar landscape.
A magical and mysterious itinerary is the one that leads from Palau to the archaeological area of Li Mizzani, where one of the most beautiful giants' tombs in the area stands. The Li Mizzani Tomb of the Giants in Santa Teresa di Gallura (68Km - 1h15 from Gabbiano Azzurro Hotel & Suites), is a monument with a central stele 2.8 meters high and 1.5 meters wide and a particular plant reminiscent of a bull's head (whose cult was venerated); in the underground tombs, a funeral ceremony was dedicated to the remains of important characters, sorcerers, shamans, whose rites lasted five days, absorbing the healing and purifying magnetic energies emanating from the tomb.
Undoubtedly, those who built them had the ability to recognize the points where telluric energy and magnetic forces accumulated, or they used the help of special "psychics" or "diviners" who, following the vibrations of the forked wands, they were able to locate the energy field, the energetic presence. I visited the site on a full moon night because I had read that the full moon enhances magnetic energy.
Other people, same as me, were there that night, silent and shoeless because the energy is better absorbed directly from the barefoot in contact with the earth. The air was pervaded by a Celtic atmosphere, in the moonlight and one could easily have imagined the music of Wizard Merlin, who with the sound of his harp managed to levitate some boulders to build a monument for the soldiers who fell in a battle. ...
Also, in the Olbia area, there are interesting testimonies of the mysterious Gallura past, including the nuragic complex of Cabu Àbbas and the sacred nuragic well of Sa Testa. (See Olbia: a city for tourists).
“… he was with his father in Gallura, which is a mountainous and picturesque region in the north of Sardinia. In Gallura there are villages and even cities, but most of the inhabitants live scattered in the countryside, in certainly not luxurious and artistic houses like villas, but comfortable and picturesque, forming microscopic villages called, in the dialect of those strong and ardent populations: stazzos.” (Grazia Deledda)
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Written by Daniela Toti
In the photo: wild goats in Caprera (photo credits Laura Mor)
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