I have travelled a fair amount, in Italy and abroad, through places more and less beautiful, more and less touristy, and I do not always come away wanting to return. Barbagia amazed me from the very first minutes, and Orgosolo is its heart.
This is not the Sardinia of turquoise bays and beach clubs. It is the other Sardinia, the mountainous, inland, stubborn one, and it is the one I fell for.
A village that is different
Orgosolo sits high on the slopes of the Supramonte, above a valley of bare land, limestone cliffs, ancient nuraghi and towering oaks. For a long time the world knew it for one thing: banditry. This was the town of shepherds and clan feuds, of kidnappings for ransom in the mountains, a place that made its own rules to survive and to outlast whoever claimed to govern it, above all the Italian state. You can still hear the old stories, and at the edge of town you can still see old road signs peppered with bullet holes.
That history has not vanished; it has changed language. The resistance is no longer waged with gunfire, but it is still here, and you feel it. In Orgosolo, the walls actually speak.
The murals, and what they are really about
Orgosolo is one of the birthplaces of Italian mural art, and today around 150 murals cover its houses and alleys. But they are not decoration, or not mainly. They are political.
The first appeared in 1969, painted by an anarchist collective called Dioniso, during the protests known as Pratobello, when the people of Orgosolo, men, women and shepherds together, occupied the land to stop the Italian army turning their common pastures into a military firing range. They won. That victory, a small community facing down the state and prevailing, is the seed of everything painted here since.
The murals multiplied from 1975, when Francesco Del Casino, a teacher from Siena who had settled in Orgosolo, set his middle-school pupils to painting the walls for the thirtieth anniversary of the Liberation from Nazism and Fascism. Local and international artists followed, and never really stopped. The result is a folk art form that is decorative on the surface and political to the bone: anarchy and protest, anti-capitalism and anti-militarism, the anniversary of the Resistance, the lives of shepherds, the emigration of Sardinian miners, and world events from apartheid to New York.
Walking from one house to the next, reading the murals aloud to give the makers back their voice, then stopping to think, is one of the most quietly powerful things I have done as a traveller. The styles vary, more or less realistic, more or less vivid, but each one lands.
I saw the town with Letizia of Visit Nuoro, who filled in the history and the meaning I would have missed on my own, and I would recommend going with someone local for exactly that reason. The murals reward being explained.
A word, since the walls raise it: they speak often of violence, of resistance and reprisal, and it would be dishonest to prettify that. I do not romanticise it. But I think these walls do something valuable; they insist that hard history be looked at rather than tidied away, and that is its own kind of peace-making.
Orgosolo beyond the murals
A village is never only its most famous thing. Like everywhere in Barbagia, Orgosolo lives by its traditions and its calendar. Beyond the fires of Sant’Antonio Abate in January, which I wrote about from nearby Mamoiada and its archaic carnival, Orgosolo keeps Nostra Sennora de Mesaustu, Our Lady of the Assumption, in mid-August, a celebration close to my heart since it is important where I was born too. It runs for the best part of three weeks, with ancient costumes and horseback processions, and ends, Letizia told me, with a horse race through the village streets, Sa Vardia. I clearly have to go back in August.
The surrounding country is deep Nuragic Sardinia, the same world I explored in nearby Bitti: nuraghi, oak woods, and the vast limestone Supramonte beyond.
Where to eat: a shepherds’ lunch
My strongest food memory of Orgosolo is a shepherds’ lunch at the Ristorante Supramonte, a few kilometres from the village. You sit in groups on long benches in the shade of huge oaks, eat traditional dishes served on wooden boards, with your hands, no ceremony. Relaxed, simple, joyful, and delicious.
At the end, the men who had cooked and served sang and danced for us, the canto a tenore, the ancient Sardinian polyphony for four male voices: the soloist sa boghe, the sa contra, the deep su bassu, and the sa mesu boghe. Hearing it live, unamplified, in that setting, is something I still feel. It is one of the oldest forms of music in the Mediterranean, and UNESCO has recognised it as intangible cultural heritage.
Where to stay, and getting there
I stayed at the Agriturismo Donnortei to visit its park, an experience I would recommend for feeling the land rather than just passing through, though as ever with places I visited some years ago, do check what is currently open before you rely on any single name.
I reached Sardinia the slow way, by overnight Tirrenia ferry from Genoa to Porto Torres, from where it is a two-and-a-half-hour drive inland to Orgosolo. You can bring a car aboard or hire one on arrival; you will want one out here, as this is not a corner of the island built around public transport.
Orgosolo struck me in a way few places do, and it stays with me. This is the centre and the heart of Sardinia, the one the beaches hide. Go inland, go slowly, and let the walls talk to you.
Further reading
- Italia.it on the murals of Orgosolo: https://www.italia.it/en/sardinia/orgosolo/things-to-do/murals-of-orgosolo
- Italian Ministry of Culture (IDESE) on the Orgosolo murals: https://idese.cultura.gov.it/en/place/murales-di-orgosolo/
FAQ
Orgosolo is a village in the Barbagia region of inland Sardinia, famous for around 150 political murals that cover its houses and streets. Once known as a town of bandits, it became one of the birthplaces of Italian mural art, and today its walls tell the story of the community’s history, struggles and politics. It sits high on the slopes of the Supramonte.
The first mural was painted in 1969 by the anarchist collective Dioniso, during the Pratobello protest, when the villagers stopped the Italian army from turning their common pastures into a military firing range. The tradition grew from 1975, when a Siena-born teacher, Francesco Del Casino, and his middle-school pupils painted murals for the thirtieth anniversary of Italy’s Liberation, and local and international artists have added to them ever since.
They are decorative on the surface but deeply political: anti-war and anti-capitalist messages, the Resistance and Liberation, the lives and struggles of Sardinian shepherds, the emigration of miners, women’s roles, and world events. Many carry a quote or poem to spell out the message. They are best seen with a local guide who can explain the history behind them.
Very much, if you want the authentic, inland Sardinia rather than the beaches. Orgosolo offers a powerful cultural experience, the murals, the traditions, the food, in a landscape of mountains and oak woods. It pairs naturally with other Barbagia stops like Mamoiada and Bitti, and rewards travellers interested in history, art and living tradition.
Orgosolo is in the province of Nuoro, deep in central Sardinia, best reached by car. Many visitors arrive in Sardinia by ferry (for example Genoa to Porto Torres) or by air, then drive inland; from the north coast it is around two and a half hours. This is mountain country with little public transport, so a car is effectively essential.
