San Sperate - Sound Stones, Murals and Mushrooms

On our last full day in Sardinia Emma drove from Villasimius on the Southeast corner to San Sperate, a small town Northwest of Cagliari. It was the home of Pinuccio Sciola, a sculptor and muralist, responsible for the flourishing of murals in the more famous but, in our opinion, less attractive town of Orgosolo near Nuoro in the mountainous north.

San Sperate was perfect for the finale. Wonderful murals, charming houses, a spectacular open-air museum of sound, filled with limestone and basalt stones, many of them uniquely sliced by Sciola to allow them to produce sounds. http://www.psmuseum.it/ And, to top it off, a fabulous mushroom-centered lunch at the eponymous restaurant of Ada, the 85-year-old woman still cooking and attracting diners from Calgiari to San Sperate.

We first saw Sciola's work in this piece on the highway leading in to the somewhat disappointing town of Orgosolo. But Emma thought the village where he lived, San Sperate might be better - and it was.

Laundry

Note how mural of lemon tree runs across door and mailbox and incorporates a real lemon tree.

Only the exposed brick on the left is real.

Painted tile portrait of Sciola on a house belonging to his family.

Sciola Sound Stone Museum. An expression of the idea of music from stone.

Fields full of cut and sliced stone.

Julia the tour guide and grand-niece of Sciola, played some of them. Some using a small piece of stone in her hand others just brushing with her fingers.

The sound sometimes has a xylophone character other times a haunting, wailing sound.

She played the small white "cube."

Emma played too. Unfortunately I did not capture the visible vibration of the ends of the stone on another piece.

Fresh Raw Porcini Salad with Pistachio at ADA restaurant

Porcini dusted with semolina and fried

Small wild mushroom pasta

Sauce of wild red mushrooms on medallion of beef

Ada and her son Andrea.

Afterwards we returned in a half hour to Hertz in Cagliari, passed the scratch inspection and took a taxi to Al Sole, our "home away from home" for the night in readiness for the 8:10 AM flight to Rome the next morning. Oh yes, unrecorded in photos was the visit to the Venchi ice cream parlor where Emma had to settle for strawberry because the mixed berries about which she had been dreaming for weeks had run out. Lesson: Grab the ice cream you want when you see it. Carpe Ice Cream!
THE END

Sardinia Miscellaneous Criticisms

Internet on the flight back allows me to do some blogging during the nine+ hour flight.
So here's a selection, limited by what I can access on Google photos.

There were some things in Sardinia that were not great. For example, in the restaurant shown below in Nuoro, the featured pasta, filindeu, a supposedly rare variety made by only two old women who continue the arduous process, and studied by famous chefs from around the world, and which supposedly defeated the efforts of pasta companies to duplicate, was really nothing more than very thin noodles in a broth. http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20161014-the-secret-behind-italys-rarest-pasta

The Holy Grail of pasta turns out to be thin and clumpy. Beware of legendary foods!

Filindeu pasta

And the tiramisu, though acceptable, was not as good as the tiramisu served to us by Captain Joel on the Finalmente when we sailed with him around the La Maddalena archipelago.

Captain Joel and First Mate Elenora

Also, when the Residenza Mordini in La Maddalena displayed eggs on the breakfast table they could have had a sign to overcome my natural expectation they were hardboiled.

It would have been nice if, on our many hikes in rough terrain, there had been more toilet facilities.  On the other hand, it may be that one of the special pleasures of Sardinia is the ease with which one may find a place to piss al fresco.

Champion hiker

The stone benches could have been softer.

The rubber boats used for the bay tour out of Cala Gonone could have been more comfortable. But it must be said that their ability to enter grottoes might be affected.

The fish portions were too big. In fact, so were the pasta portions.

Malloreddus pasta

Sometimes the cliffs were too steep for us to climb.

Stones were everywhere. It was hard to find a flat place to stand unless you went to the middle of a highway.

The people were overly friendly.

Woman from next table at a farm country restaurant in the mountains.

Another annoying thing, when you stop to ask people for directions, instead of just giving you directions in plain English, they say "Follow me!"

The guy in front showed us the way to get to the northern end of La Maddalena Island.

There were no elevators or escalators at some of the important sites.

620 STEPS DOWN TO THE NEPTUNE GROTTO

 AND 620 UP.

An excessive amount of coral was being sold.

There are mosquitos.

Too much sun.

Smoking is lawful.

So, on balance, maybe we should have gone to Florida.

THE END

Kudos and Mea Culpa With Only Three Photos

The highest praise goes to Emma for driving more than 1500 kilometers on the roads of Sardinia, some of which had curves every five or ten seconds for hours! She did a driving circumnavigation.

The biggest criticism goes to Danny for messing up his navigation duties so badly that Emma had to drive 80 km of twisty mountain road because of his mistake - and that was after half a day of difficult driving during which she saved the life of a dog with an amazing short stop in the small village just before Orani. Emma's lightning reflexes saved us from running over a dog which dashed out of a house right in front of the car. Some of the roads, particularly as they passed through little towns where stone houses come right up to the road, were so narrow (and with people walking) that the car's proximity alarms went off. Inside some of the towns some of the clearances were just inches on either side.

Not our car

Our car

To repeat, the worst was when Danny, after only 1/4 liter of red wine at lunch in Dorgali, failed to notice (until after 40 kilometers of difficult mountain driving by Emma,) that we had completely gone away from our destination of Cala Gonone. Emma heroically drove back those 40 kilometers and then the 12 additional twisting kilometers to Cala Gonone. And there was also intermittent fog going and returning.           

Kudos to Emma for buying tomatoes, cheese, figs and plums for snacks and the occasional lunch when our schedule did not permit a restaurant. And for bringing the plastic containers in which they were stored.

Kudos to Emma for suggesting the trip to Sardinia and finding a host of interesting places we would not have visited if her research had not turned them up.

Kudos to Emma for spotting scores of things Danny would never have noticed, ranging from the deepest gorge in Europe in a vast landscape panorama, to out-of-season wisteria and scores of things in between. (Emma wanted to hike the gorge but gave up that idea when she found out it had to be done with a guide and was strenuous and resulted in some lost tourists every year. Spotting it was a great consolation.

Kudos to Emma for making sure we kept ourselves hydrated.

Kudos to Emma for handling the money so well we ended up with more Euros than when we started.

Kudos to Emma for art-directing Danny to insure that his photos were the best possible.

Photo taken without Emma's art direction.

Kudos to Danny for listening to Emma.

Thanks to modern technology this is being posted while flying from Rome to New York.

Porto Cervo and Porto Rotondo

Two purpose-built or rebuilt towns catering to an upscale clientele in the luxurious Northeast corner of Sardinia. Part of the Costa Smeralda supposedly frequented by celebrities - originally developed by the Aga Khan. The Marinas filled with nice boats. Porto Cervo had a more enclosed feel with shops and residences in a relatively unitary structural plan. Shops were the names one expects to find in such places - the sort which I would not dream of entering. Porto Rotondo had a more open feel and was distinguished for me by a lovely use of black and white stone and metal to make fish illustrations in the road. None of this was the real Sardinia

Porto Cervo

Boat leaving Porto Cervo

Large stone mosaics in Porto Rotondo

The artist - Emmanuel Chapalain

Squid

Whale

Porto Rotondo has a theater in the form of the ancient amphitheater.