Visiting Bosa

26/05/18

Summer has arrived on the island! Blue skies and temperature rising. The rain is a thing of the past and as the green fields are becoming yellow-gold, the thinking of people here is that now they will be facing  2 or 3 months of very hot weather. My brothers have been busy cutting the high grass, as soon there will be danger of potential fires.  (This is a recurrent problem in Sardinia as every year numerous fires start, burning hundreds of hectares of Mediterranean macchia.)
Bosa from the Castle

Time is up for us and we are ready to return. The one day trip to Bosa finally took place and the weather this time was clement. The little town on the west coast is a pretty place and the B&B where we stayed was situated on a hill slope overlooking the Castle above Bosa. The place is called
"Giardini Malaspina" and the family who run it is originally from south Sardinia and now they have established themselves there running three different businesses. They were very nice to us and our stay was comfortable and pleasant.

The B&B Giardini Malaspina seen from the Castle

We visited the museum of leather making (tannery). It was interesting to find out that to make a piece of it would take between 6 and 8 months in a long laborious process.

Tomato tins made into flower pots along the streets of Bosa

Narrow streets of Bosa

One of the ways down from the Castle

Fisherman on the river Temo in Bosa.

The view of the Castle

After Bosa we went to see a small village on the top of a hill called " Monteleone Rocca Doria  ". This is a place I always wanted to see, and after reading that the village is destined to disappear due to the young people leaving the place for a better chance to find jobs elsewhere, we discovered that it is a true reality. There are only 90 people living there and we bumped into one of the last old persons born there. He was sitting on his own enjoying the morning sun and we stopped for a chat. All his friends are dead and it was sad to see that also all his sons have moved away.

Giovanni Piras, one of the oldest in the village of Rocca Doria

The lake below Rocca Doria and the escavated corrie  of tufo where Giovanni Piras used to work making bricks.

A small church in Rocca Doria

lesley and a gigantic plant (as yet unidentified)

The village has a post office which opens 3 times a week for a few hours. No school as there are not enough young kids left. No shops but a delivery van comes once a week to deliver some food. The place is in a beautiful position but this is not enough to entertain people. Many villages are destined
to disappear and not just in Sardinia.

An old house with carved stones from the corrie

 

     

2 weeks to go

16/05/18

As Battistino is still busy on the third Carasau marathon – this time making enough bread to last the family into the summer months, including their month’s stay in the nearby coastal resort of Cala Gonone, I have taken over at the keyboard, making use of the free wi-fi here in Oliena.

 Well, we’ve decided it must be me who is the water fairy – no sooner had I alighted from my giant orange bird-plane on May 1^st, than the heavens opened again and the sun hasn’t really recovered since!  I can count the number of sunny days since we came in March on one hand.  Consequently, the afore-mentioned trip to Bosa has been postponed until next Tuesday – just as well, as we later watched footage of submerged vehicles in the town, and even someone swimming down the high street!  It seems the river had burst its banks.

 

Locoe river on our return

               

                                                                Bamboo tomato trellis

     

The weather hasn’t stopped progress with the food production, however, and we’ve now added several rows of different types of tomatoes, along with aubergines, zucchini, various types of summer beans, cabbages, lettuce, onions…..you name it.  Thank goodness the frequent showers mean that we have not had to spend too much time watering in the evenings.  Having said that, the grass and wild flowers have flourished rather too well so our nephew, Andrea, has his work cut out after school, strimming the paths and spaces between the vines and around the vegetable plots.  I am rather pleased that he is so keen on using machinery as it would be impossible to keep on top of the work without it.

 

Grow, grow, grow.

     

                                     My wild flower garden                                               

                                                                                             

Only two weeks to go before we return to (hopefully) sunny Scotland, and it looks like the roof will still be the bane of our lives when we resume residence in September.  Any amount of silicone, expansion foam and cunningly recycled pieces of metal guttering don’t seem to manage to prevent the place from leaking……..mainly on top of the beds (correction: Batti’s bed!)  The extension, meanwhile, is pretty watertight and now sports a fetching shade of Ronseal ‘Cedar’, procured via Amazon at a less than amazing bargain of £35 per 5 litres!!    

......blending in?

4x the size of a dandelion clock....salsify!

The expedition in the Goceano was cancelled due to bad weather, but – hurrah! – last Sunday we did succeed in scaling the dizzy heights of Monte Corrasi and Punta Carabidda, two of the peaks that form part of the mountain group behind the town of Oliena.  It really is a spectacular hill, with a decidedly negative ‘bog factor’!  Slabby grey-white rock surfaces fringed with flora, including lilies, peonies, rosemary, cistus, cyclamen, orchids, hawthorn, juniper and loads of ‘alpine’ plants.

Punta cara bidda from punta Corrasi

                                                  Three old geezers I bumped into on

                                                     Some kind of mountain lily, I guess

                                                        Wild peony roses at 1,463 m

                                                              On punta cara bidda

Oliena from a airy height

                                                      Rock garden with cyclamen

                                      

                 

                                                                     

                                           

                 

Some pictures

Lesley arrived on the 1st of May bringing with her torrential rain. Our plan to have a couple of days' holiday on the west coast did not materialise. Sardinia was affected by a perturbation and the red alert was issued by the regional government. Heavy rain has affected many areas in the whole island and many places were flooded and  schools closed. We got stuck in Marazzino but we managed a few walks. Here are some pictures.

part of the local beach was taken by the river

high wind with spectacular views

rocks and waves

And a series of wild flower display on the beach walks