
33/377: Santu Lussurgiu
INSPIRATION

The weather is not promising. I leave Abbasanta in a westerly direction, towards Montiferru, on which some black clouds hover. I pass the 131 motorway and cycle through green fields full of damp. The wind begins to rise as I approach Montiferru.
Beautiful cork trees, the last moment of contemplation of the landscape. The wind rises, the rain begins and as I climb the last sharp bends towards Santu Lussurgiu. I am hit by a storm so strong that it forces me to stop at times. The worst weather condition of the trip so far.

I arrive at the Town Hall where Vice Mayor Francesca welcomes me. The day is not the best to go around the historic center of the town, very nice, with a beautiful stone paving.
We head immediately to the headquarters of the Hymnos Foundation, a beautiful restored ancient noble house where there is a study center for the popular liturgical and paraliturgical polivocality. In addition to an invaluable collection of books concerning the vocality of each period (including medieval volumes), there is a multimedia section where I can listen to several pieces of the Su Cuncordu e’ Su Rosariu choir.
Thanks to a touchpad I can isolate the various voices of the four singers, so I spend a lot of time studying the secrets of a singing style that seems perfect and inseparable in its individual components.

In the afternoon I visit the Museum of Peasant Technology, very large and full of objects and equipment of everyday life pf the past.
A young girl, graduated in psychology abroad but now returned to Sardinia to look for work, guides me and describes everything with great detail and enthusiasm, the plows, the tools to shear sheep, to make bread, to weaving, to make milk, and all the domestic objects of the past.

Unfortunately it rains too much to visit the village. I can just see the beautiful geography around, with two large basalt stone hills facing the village, in one of which there is a white Christ similar to the one in Rio de Janeiro.

The next morning, leaving for Bonarcado, under the sun I will be able to see a little more of the historical center, the beautiful basalt houses, the two churches of the center, a smaller one hidden among the houses. On the road to Bonarcado I see the deep valley with Sos Molinos falls down on one side, and an old water deposit, recently painted in an eclectic way by the street artist Urka, on the other side.
SOUND FRAGMENTS
Inspired by the beautiful harmonies of the Su Cuncordu e’ Su Rosariu choir.
SARDINIAN SHORT STORIES
Tonio is a passionate pizza chef. Entering his pizzeria seems to enter (as someone put in an unfair review online) in your uncle’s room. And it is the most beautiful thing you can experience.
Stone walls, fireplace lit, and Tonio who every now and then, between a pizza and the other, goes to adjust some logs. There are simple tables, plates and glasses all in plastic, no cutlery, the pizzas are eaten strictly by hand. Tonio welcomes everyone warmly and makes you feel immediately at ease with some jokes.
At the end of the room pizzas are made, there is no barrier but only a work surface and a wood-burning oven. Tonio makes some pizzas and then returns to chat. We don’t seem to be in a restaurant but at the home of a friend who is cooking for you.
When I start talking to him about my project, Tonio’s eyes light up, he stops doing what he is doing ‘wait, wait, tell me, I like these kind of things too much’. When I finish Tonio shows me the hairs on his arm, all up. He tells me that I absolutely have to write the details on a note.
Then he returns to his job. After the pizzas we are offered chestnuts cooked in the fireplace. Tonio tells me that he has traveled a lot and worked a lot abroad, where he learned his trade and made great human experiences. Now it is time to bring the experience back to Sardinia.
He admits that if he could he would leave everything to do what I am doing. Before leaving, Tonio makes me write the address of my blog on a note and attaches it next to other small note sheets.
He tells me ‘all these are things I hear from clients, books to read, things that catch my attention and I say to myself I need to read and check. I’m a curious man by nature!’
I’m glad to have found another fan. This project (conceived by a curious man by nature) is going on thanks to the curious nature of some men!