INSPIRATION

I start the tour around the village with Andrea, a guy who will guide me for the morning. We go along the main road, passing the church of Sant’Anastasia with the oratory of Santa Croce next to it, which now acts as a sacristy. With the heat and the sun, the yellowish colors of the Miocene rock with which the church and its tall bell tower are built are blinding.

We walk to the edge of the village and walk along a little country road that leads us to a limestone ridge overlooking the valley of the Rio Mascari. Cave cuts are visible, and the land at the bottom of the valley is all planted with vineyards or olive groves.

We arrive at Sas Puntas, a place of ancient burials, the domus de janas, where a beautiful one, with an architectural prospect, stands out, the entrance of which takes up the profile of the typical stems of the giants’ tombs. Around the tomb there are stone seats, on the sides some steps carved on the rock, and in front some tanks, from the Roman age, perhaps other tombs connected and reused for the collection of water or the must for making wine.

Back to the center of the village we cross the colorful main square where the old town hall and the market are located, and where some children freely play ball. We continue until we pass the old building of the Tissese Agricultural Cooperative of the early 1900s, one of the first agricultural cooperatives that arose in Italy. We arrive at the stone structure of the old water purifier of 1905 and then to the beautiful Romanesque church of Santa Vittoria, in the usual white rock. From up here, at the high end of Via Roma, we see the bell tower of the parish church.

In this heat, we just have to end the morning with cold beers at the bar. Here the mayor Gian Maria reaches me and takes me to lunch at the Exmà park, where some people have just started a barbecue to roast meat and sausage. During lunch, Gian Maria tells me about a social project of the Municipality through which some ex-prisoners are kept busy cleaning the streets. Nice to know that this opportunity is given to those who have to rebuild a life, who knows if it will also happen to those who just a few hours ago robbed the village bank…

SOUND FRAGMENTS

SHORT SARDINIAN STORIES

In Tissi, as well as in Ittiri, Codrongianos, Aglientu, Ardara and Cargeghe, Proibito by Mario Monicelli was shot in 1954, a film based on the novel La Madre by Nobel Prize Grazia Deledda. A scene was shot right outside the church of Santa Vittoria. I add this to the long list of movies to watch about Sardinia. In the meantime, in the afternoon I am invited at the middle school by Fabio, where I was a guest yesterday in Usini, to meet young students who are following various extra-curricular activities, including video-makeing. The students are divided in this way: the girls organised a choreography over a Korean pop song, while the boys take care of the shooting. I will strengthen the bass of the base with my ukulele. “Lights, cameras, action” whispers one of the guys, and we start, the super-serious dancers, and me chasing the notes of the bass. After two takes, they decide to interview and film me, they prepare some questions and again “Lights, cameras, action” … I answer thinking that among these guys there could be a new Monicelli.