By Corey Sandler, Destination Consultant Silversea Cruises

“Sardinia, which is like nowhere. Sardinia, which has no history, no date, no race, no offering. They say neither Romans nor Phoenicians, Greeks nor Arabs ever subdued Sardinia. It lies outside; outside the circuit of civilization.”

Those were the words of D. H. Lawrence in his book, Sea and Sardinia.

Very evocative.

Not fully true, although it certainly is an unusual place.

Sardinia is part of Italy, while its neighbor Corsica is part of France.

Although French Corsica is closer to Italy than France, and

Italian Sardinia is closer to France (at Corsica) or Tunisia than it is to Italy.

Oh, and in Corsica most would prefer to speak Corsican.

In Sardinia, the traditionalists are partial to Sardinian, although in Alghero many old-timers speak a dialect of Catalan Spanish.

Scattered around Sardinia are thousands of megalithic ruins known as nuraghes in Sardinian or nuraghi in Italian.

The name is believed to come from an old word meaning heap of stones, or confusingly, a cavity in the earth.

In any case, they are usually located in panoramic or strategic locations; about eight thousand have been cataloged. Historians say perhaps 30,000 once existed.

They date from the middle of the Bronze Age (18th-15th centuries BC). Many were in continuous use when Rome arrived in the 2nd century BC.

We don’t know much more.

They may been used for religious purposes or as military posts, or both.

And we know little about what are known as the Nuragic people.

Alghero was built around a fortress.

The port was founded about 1102 by the powerful and wealthy Doria family of Genoa; they ruled Alghero and other places for centuries.

We will be returning to Alghero on April 24; I’ll have more commentary in the blog entry that day.

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