INSPIRATION

I enter the second half of the project and I’m tired. Fortunately, after a bit of uphill, I arrive at the top of the road, from which I can admire the Chilivani plain, where I was a few weeks ago. From here the road to Tula is all downhill, a beautiful road that descends to the Coghinas lake. From here on, a bit of a climb begins again up to the village.

Here, Councilor Elia is waiting for me, who will host me at his house, with his wife Patrizia and their daughter Viola. We go to the library where the librarian Stefania welcomes me. She organized my event tonight, in the park beside the library.

After a coffee, Elia and I walk through the streets of the village. I immediately notice that most of the houses in the center are built with red trachyte and light tufa. Many houses have beautiful wooden doors and stone-bordered windows, and some abandoned houses still have beautiful balconies and wrought-iron rosettes.

We pass by the square with the church of Sant’Elena, all in red trachyte, and we head to the schools where elementary and middle school children are waiting for us. Everyone sitting outdoors listening to my ukulele and my stories, along with the teachers, who are also intrigued. We are joined by the Mayor Gesuino and all together we stop at a bar for the aperitif, the compulsory beer (they advised me to be careful of Tula beer!)

After lunch, me, Elia and his daughter Viola with a girlfriend, take the car to visit the site of Sa Mandra Manna. Here are a number of pre-nuragic, nuragic and later structures. We arrive at the megalithic structure, a long wall of stones, with entrances and corridors, in which we can notice stones with very particular incisions. Further down we come to a domus de janas in trachyte boulders. And not far away are the remains of a tomb of the giants and a corridor nuraghe. It is definitely hot and I forgot to bring a hat.

Back in the village and left the girls, Elia and I drive to the lake. Reaching its shores we enjoy the view, while a single fisherman on a rock by the water awaits the movement of the line stretched on the rod. Under these waters are the remains of the church of San Pietro, submerged after the construction of the reservoir, and rebuilt not far from here in the hamlet of Sa Sia. Here in the summer you can do various activities such as canoeing and water skiing, and at the same time practice birdwatching.

Back again in the village, a small group is waiting for me at the park next to the library for the presentation-concert. I am also pleased to see the well-known faces, Giovanni Antonio and Lilla who came from Ozieri. And then we retire for a further aperitif, dinner, and at this point the fatigue accumulated in the previous days, and today’s sun, are felt. For the second time in the journey I will be very ill all night and I will be forced to leave very late the next morning with even more heat. The dreaded Sardinian summer has arrived.

 

SOUND FRAGMENTS

 

SHORT SARDINIAN STORIES

Inspired by Stefano Mirti’s “Tiny Letters”, fragments of stories he sometimes reads in newspapers, sometimes hears from people (I would recommend you subscribe to his newsletter but it’s only in Italian!), here are some recent news I read about Tula on La Nuova Sardegna newspaper:

May 15, 2019. “The Tulese, the charm of the past …”, is the title of the book by Luigi Branca, journalist and writer, published in these days, which traces the history of the Tula football team from the 70s until today …(continues)”

March 31, 2019. “The largest optical telescope in Sardinia will find a home in Tula, where a private astronomical observatory is being set up that will be made available to scholars and schools. The initiative stems from an idea by Francesco Becca, a Tulese engineer who graduated from the Milan Polytechnic, where he currently leads a company, founded by him, of industrial robotics and seismic engineering and which is now the promoter of a project with scientific and informative objectives in the his homeland … (continues)”

March 8, 2019. “It doesn’t often happen that Davide gets the better than Goliath but every once in a while it happens and this time it happened in Tula that in the presence of bigger and more important realities, on a lot of 40 selected locations throughout Italy it was chosen as model country for the exploitation of wind energy … (continues)”