The Pre-Historic (1500-ish) Nuragic Sites

Today I rode 250 km and 8 hours through some of the wildest and most interesting country I've ever seen. Again, the roads are fabulous for motorcycle touring, and if you're thinking about it, come... there is touring and horseback riding and sailing and diving and snorkeling and trekking and old villages and historic sites... or just riding through wild Sardegna on good roads in the sunshine. These Nuragic sites are so interesting. I had no idea they existed... but why would I? Sardegna is a small island in the scheme of things. Here people from 1500 B.C. lived, cultivated land, worshipped. It's difficult to imagine what their life was like: not as basic as we think. There have been Nuragic sites found that are quite sophisticated. There is a staircase into the depths of the earth in middle Sardegna that aligns perfectly with the moon at a certain time in its cycle. 15th century B.C. ruins in the 21st century. A strange feeling. Inside the above, twenty people can stand. I plan to visit more of these sights as I ride through Sardigna the next few days, before moving on to Sicily.

Alghero to Bose

On the way we stopped at a WWII soldiers' bunker. Sardegna wasn't heavily bombed in WWII, and only once in Alghero so the soldiers--Francesco told me--must have had a fine time on the seafront, fishing and hunting wild boar and just hanging out. We parked the big Guzzi when the road got too rough and Franco rode me up to this site on his Yamaha 600 enduro, a ride he swears was tame by his standard but I'd be loath to repeat. Look closely below on the top of the wall and you'll see a warship. There was an artist amongst the soldiers. (And not too many amongst the graffiti artists who came after.). We took the road to Bosa, which is kind of like Highway One near Big Sur except there's no fog at all and every once and a while there's a 14th century tower still standing guard against the Saracenes. The river in Bosa. A coffee in Bosa. Tomorrow I'll ride through the middle of Sardegna to the mid-east coast where I'll pitch my tent at Cala Gonone and visit the Cala di Luna, the blue grotto, and ride into the bandit town of Oliena on my way to the Nuragic site of Tiscali.   < previous | next >