Travel guide Sardinia

Reputedly brave and proud, the shepherd sums up the Sardinian identity. He is the guardian of the culture and of his flock of sheep, another emblem of the island. Gifted with a great wisdom, he is the one who has the proverb: "He who comes from beyond the seas is a thief". The Spaniards, once conquerors, described him as "crazy and brawler".

In Sardinia, the shepherd's best friend is the knife. Cutlery is elevated to the rank of art and a museum pays tribute to it in the small town of Arbus. The finest blades come from the village of Pattada, in Nuoro. Damascus steel or chiselled, handle made of sheep horn: the resolza (retractable knife) is still made by hand.

Domus de janas means "house of the fairies", and it's by this poetic name that the Sardinians refer to the funerary circles of their Neolithic ancestors. They date back to a period extending from 4000 BC to 2700 BC. Legend has it that the janas were witches, sometimes malevolent, sometimes unfortunate, who lived in these houses.

If the word sounds like a summer hit, it's actually the Sardinian language. In the absence of a written set of rules, the Sardinian language is subject to nuances, and even differences, depending on the region. Today, it's the language closest to the one spoken by the ancient Romans. It is still spoken by 70% of the population.

To enjoy Sardinian pasta, turn to malloreddus, also known locally as cigiones, macarones caidos or cravaos. Made from durum wheat semolina, this pasta was traditionally handmade by women for special occasions. They are prepared in a tomato sauce and served with sausage.

This berry, halfway between blackcurrant and blueberry, is not eaten. It's best enjoyed as a black, syrupy liqueur as an aperitif or digestive. The Italians call it limoncello, the Sardinians murta. Each family has its own recipe, and it's only recently that production has been "industrialized" to promote this typically Sardinian product.

More than 7,000 of these remains of the Nuraghic civilization, which reached its peak in the Bronze Age, remain. Archaeologists are still investigating the significance of these round or conical stone towers. Scattered throughout the island, the nuraghes probably had several functions: military, religious and astronomical.

It's a word that sums up the Sardinian art of living and the best of social interaction. At the end of the day, when the temperature drops, Sardinians leave their homes, dressed to the nines, to stroll along the corso or the village piazza. Families stroll along, before meeting up with friends, by chance or habit, to chat for hours on end.

"To try it is to adopt it. This is what the Sardinians must have said to themselves when they stole the recipe from the Romans who came to invade them. This 100% sheep's milk cheese, the oldest in Italy, has become an essential product on Sardinian tables. It has a Protected Designation of Origin, just like Fiore Sardo, its smoked version.

The Sardinian farmer erected dry stone walls around his plots of land, redrawing the contours of the plateaus and meadows into tiny plots of land. The Spaniards, inspired by these landscape patterns, gave them the name of tancas, which means closed or blocked. These tancas are still a characteristic landscape of Sardinia.

Polyphonic singing has a very ancient musical tradition. Performed in a choir of 4 men, the rough melodies are part of a melancholy repertoire passed down orally. This song imitates the sounds of the agro-pastoral universe: love, mythology, satire, popular traditions. This song is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Nuragic civilization left tombs that the Sardinians have called Tombs of the Giants. The mausoleums of 5 to 10 meters long could contain more than a hundred bodies. The tomb consists of a corridor, often covered, at the end of which stands a row of monoliths placed in an arc and placed on edge.