Berchidda: a Beautiful Full-Day Excursion 0 Commentaires

Berchidda: a Beautiful Full-Day Excursion

Just an hour by car from the Gabbiano Azzurro Hotel & Suites and the village of Golfo Aranci, the town of Berchidda does indeed deserve a trip to appreciate one of the places where landscape, history and traditions come together offering an all-around experience of Sardina's roots and culture.

Berchidda is a small town of about 3,000 inhabitants located at Mount Limbara’s feet, surrounded by archaeological and cultural sites. DolmensDomus de Janas and Nuraghe are some of the historical attractions. The ruins of the Castel of Mount Acuto and the Santa Caterina and San Marco Churches also offer the tourist an interesting excursion rich in history. Berchidda town is surrounded by the luxuriant Mediterranean high scrub (arbutus, juniper, lentisk and olive trees) and low scrub (heather, brooms, cistus and rosemary).

It is also well-known for the "Time in Jazz Music Festival, held in mid-August, founded and organized by Paolo Fresu, a world-renowned Sardinian trumpet player born in Berchidda in 1961. This festival attracts jazz lovers and artists from all over the world, an event that involves a few thousand people attending it.

Very interesting to visit is the Regional Wine Museum of Sardinia, which Berchidda, home of the Vermentino, hosts. It is the first multimedia museum in Italy dedicated to the wine culture, a winery traditions temple where the wine world is well told and exhibited.

The imposing building, located high up in the antique village of Berchidda at the foot of Mount Limbara, at first sight, has the appearance of a white fortress. Inside it is bright, modern and pleasant. It starts with the wine amphorae, the su laccu, the trachyte tub for the first pressing with the feet (found in the nuraghe and reused in Roman times) and the granite-based wooden structure press used for pressing grapes. Given the relationship that the cork has with the bottling of wine, the last part of the museum reports on the cork and its processing. It is possible to purchase wines and taste them together with typical products for a precious encounter with the harmonic flavours of the food and wine of northern Sardinia.

Worthy of note is the Oleificio Cooperativo Gallura (Olive Oil Mill) which, in recent years, has invested in commitment and work, with the purpose of quality oil, keeping an eye to the inclusion in the "Guide to Extravergin", printed by the Slow Food Presidium. The cooperative counts 300 members, and, together with the Orosei Cedrino’s Valley’s Olive Growers Cooperative, participate in community programs to support the Sardinian olive growing brand.

One of the most interesting sites is undoubtedly Monte Acuto, Acuto Mount, evoking the myth of Giorgia or Giolzia the Warrior Princess, who conceived and made the construction of the fortress of which only the ruins remain today. The path leading to the top of the mountain goes through the Nuragic period, with the recent discovery of a dolmen and with "Sa pedra iscritta", a large stone engraved with 36 geometric shapes, which was supposedly used by the Balari (ancient nuragic people 2000 BC) for religious ceremonies, with the sacred well a few meters away, up to the medieval period of the Monte Acuto fortress, which, after Giorgia, belonged to Adelasia Torres and her husband Ubaldo Visconti, then to the Doria and Malaspina and finally to the judges of Arborea. Ruined sections of walls, ruins of a tower and a cistern are still there. At the top of Monte Acuto a 360 degrees view of the whole territory is the amazing reward of the climb.

A magical note is given by the Butterfly Garden of the Island, opened in 2009. The entomologists have unfortunately discovered a reduction of these beautiful insects in most of the Italian regions. In Sardinia, there are 54 species of daytime butterflies that visiting the Garden can be admired from springtime through autumn. Totally free butterflies, feeding on flowers nectar or laying eggs on the nursing plants. It is an interesting invitation to be acquainted with the enchanted and colourful world of butterflies.

Sardinia is a whole universe to be discovered. Reserved, and that is revealed slowly only to those who know how to look beyond”. (quote) 

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Written by Daniela Toti

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