How Well Do the British Know Sardinia?

There is a Facebook Page called Do the Brits know Sardinia? which hasn't posted anything for over two years now. It's a shame because it's an interesting question and, in my experience, the answer is pretty much an overwhelming 'no'! To be fair, it isn't entirely their fault. Sardinia rarely features in the British media and, if it does, it's on the holiday pages of newspapers and dominated by the delights of holidaying in the Costa Smeralda, as if no other part of Sardinia is worth visiting. Lots of Sardinians have told me that the Costa Smeralda, having been hijacked by the ultra wealthy and famous as a go-to destination, is not the real Sardinia. The city and region of Nuoro in Central Sardinia, where I've lived for 12 years now, is much closer to being the cultural heart of the island. At the same time, one musn't forget the south, the island's capitol city of Cagliari, and the delights of both the west and east coasts.

I must confess that when I first met my Sardinian wife I knew little about the island beyond the fact that Gianfranco Zola, the famous ex-Chelsea and Italian international footballer, was from Sardinia, and that the island was one of the world's 'blue zones', meaning it has a much larger proportion of centenarians per head of population, and that people tend to live longer here than is the average elsewhere. Among my friends and relatives, the only person who had heard of Nuoro was my brother, because he'd read the D.H Lawrence travel memoir, Sea and Sardinia, which mentions the town. So perhaps it's a bit unfair of me to criticise my compatriots for their ignorance of what the island is actually like but, I must confess, I have heard some pretty wild assumptions about it over the years!

One of the most common mistakes that the British make is about the size of the island. On one trip back to Bristol I remember the taxi driver, taking me from Bristol Airport to where I was staying, telling me that he thought that Sardinia was about the size of the Isle Of Wight. On another occasion a rather well spoken lady, who was staying in the same bed and breakfast accommodation as we were, in Filton in Bristol, was surprised to hear us say that Sardinia has three International Airports (Olbia, Alghero and Cagliari). "I wouldn't have thought Sardinia was big enough to have more than one airport," she said. When I told her that the land mass of Sardinia was slightly larger than that of the whole of Wales she, rather good-naturedly responded with, "I'm shutting up!" Yes, ignorance about the island and its size is fairly widespread. I remember reading a comment online in one of the British daily newspapers, at a time when Sardinia actually made the news globally because of a cyclone that hit the island in November 2013. It read something like "that's what happens on these tiny overpopulated islands". Well, obviously the commenter didn't know that Sardinian's population of about 1.6 million is less than that of the Greater Birmingham area in the UK and, as I've already written, on an island with a land mass slightly larger than that of the Wales. The map below, with its comparisons with Belgium and Denmark etc., gives a truly accurate impression of the size of the island. 

However, the size of the island isn't the only thing about Sardinia that escapes the knowledge of the British. I have had people ask me if Sardinia is in Portugal or, confusing it with Sicily, wanting to assert that it's the home of the mafia! Others have suggested to me that it must be rather backward. Well, Sardinia certainly isn't in Portugal and it has never been a home for mafiosi. It did, however, once have a problem with banditry, but that has all but disappeared now. As for being backward, well!!! As a part of the Italian state, all the mod cons that are available elsewhere are available in Sardinia and, from my experience, Sardinians seems to have a very good balance between retaining their old traditions and embracing the technology that comes with the modern world. There are other things which come to mind. One of my closest friends actually surprised me, because he seemed surprised, when I told him that Sardinians are no less likely to have their arms and legs adorned with tattoos than they are anywhere else. Yes, there are several tattoo parlours in Nuoro!

I often think of Sardinia as being like the Ireland of Italy. It's an island to the west of the Italian mainland (or 'continente' as the Sardinians themselves say) and, while they have acquired a lot of Italian traits, they have their own distinct culture and character which is somewhat different from most of Italy. And, as with Ireland, that can boast of the likes of BernardShaw, OscarWilde and Seamus Heaney, Sardinia has a very rich literary and cultural heritage. How many Brits know that the famous political philosopher, Antonio Gramsci, was from Ales in Sardinia? Or that the second woman to win the Nobel Prize for literature, in 1926, was Grazia Deledda, from Nuoro? Again, I must be fair, because I hadn't heard of Grazia Deledda before my wife told me about her, when we first met. Most of her books have only been translated into English comparitively recently, and haven't been read terribly widely outside of Italy, so she isn't anything like as well known in the English speaking world as perhaps she should be. 

Then there is the little known fact that Sardinia has it's own language, of which there are many different dialects, usually called 'Sardo' or 'Sardu'. I myself know little more than a few words and phrases in Sardo, mainly because my wife doesn't speak it (although she does understand it when spoken). During Italy's fascist period, the use of the Sardinian language was brutally suppressed and the unfortunate legacy of this was that a lot of parents, while conversing in Sardo with each other, would only speak Italian in the presence of their children. There has been a significant change in attitude over the last few decades, but still the language has no official status in public life. I've seen so many conflicting statistics about the percentage of Sardinians who speak Sardo that it is hard to know the truth. However, it would appear to be a much larger percentage of the population than the percentage of Welsh people who speak Welsh. 

If the Brits do think of Sardinia at all, they are likely to think of an island with lots of sunshine and beautiful beaches, but there is much more to the island than the sea and sunshine. It has a very long history, which dates back to neolithic times, and especially interesting is what is called the Nuragic Civilisation, the remains of which can be seen in many parts of the island in the form of buildings called Nuraghe. There is one such Nuraghi here in Nuoro. We've been lucky enough to visit a handful of the many architectural sites, which preserve many of the remants of Sardinia's ancient history, such as Tharros , on the west coast, and Serra Orrias, near Dorgali, which I wrote about several years ago. 

Tharros

In fact, Sardinia has a bit of something for everybody. Another little known fact about the island is that, there are four ski resorts. Several years ago we visited one of them for the day, on Mount Broncu Spinu, not far from the town of Fonni. Fonni is the highest town in Sardinia and a place where snowfall is common in winter and average temperatures are lower than a lot of places in the UK!

I have to confess that I cannot remember the island of Sardinia ever being mentioned during geography lessons in my schooldays and, as I've already written, there is scant coverage of the island in the British media. So the British can be forgiven for their general ignorance of the island. But then, how much do we know about any of the other main islands in the Mediterranean? It's such a shame that the charms of Sardinia are not more widely known, when you consider its history, rich culture and reputation for hospitality and quality food and wine. It has opened up more to tourism in the last two or three decades, with the rise of budget airlines, but it's still Spain and the Greek Islands that seem to be the more popular destinations for many British holidaymakers. In this post I could have written so much more about the island that I have come to call home, even if I've written far more than I intended to!