Vendettas, nuraghi and the marches: Bandits and other barbarians

Way up in Le Barbagie heartland (in English this means 'barbarian') sits a mountaintop village notorious for its history of banditry, killings and kidnappings: Orgozolo. For much of the twentieth century Orgozoloans have been killing themselves and others. When they were not murdering rival families, reputedly at the rate of two killings a month into the 1950s, they were heavily into sheep rustling, which was soon forsaken for international kidnapping, which likely paid a great deal more.

Very recently, in fact in 1992, the child of a Saudi millionaire basking on the Costa Smerelda, was captured and held to ransom in the hills near here.

Today the villagers are attempting to improve their image, amend their ways, by encouraging tourists to come view some 150 political and satirical murals that locals have helped to paint along the main winding thoroughfares of this grim little hilltop town. As we wander, we see older men staring in small sullen groups along the streets. Packs of restless youths wander, aimlessly, noisily, quickly, from one venue to another, looking for excitement, looking for trouble, maybe just looking for something to do. Older women, in traditional black dress, are the only ones who appear remotely purposeful.

Most of these people know the stories about their town. They know exactly who the bad guys of history were. It is likely that some of these very men were players in some of those notorious gangs. Possibly, too, some of the old women dressed all in black and veiled helped in the planning.

The murals, like the townsfolk, make you feel more than a little uneasy. There is a violence about most of the images, a passion for revolt, a bias against police, a cynicism about corruption. There are many vivid images of war, guns and weapons. And some very sad images of poverty.

The idea of murals for the village started as a school project in 1975 and the number has been increasing since. Now they bring tourists way up into this remote village where carabinieri once feared to come. The tourists bring money, albeit scant day-tripper coin, as the town is still too grindingly poor to offer much in the way of long term stay opportunities. Tho the region abounds with stone archeology. And the locals stare, rather grimly, as tourists take endless snapshots of derelict walls in this derelict little town tarted up with graffiti and pseudo-Picasso style caricatures that bring in too few dollars.

Our sat nav brought us up this way by quite a civilised route. It took us down towards the gulf in a far more adventurous fashion. Switchbacking downhill from the savage heart of the massifs that make up the highest points of Sardinia for just fifty kilometres took us nearly two solid hours. The limestone grey face of sheer rock that is the Supramonte was, at times, almost at eye-level.

The scenery of this heartland, a huge National Park taking up much of the centre of Sardinia, is, again, all about rocks. The slopes and jagged mountain tops are pocked with natural rock and man-made rock structures: nuraghe, wells, ruined temples, giant tombs, fallen towers, rock mounds and the debris of other structures.

Bronze age man must have been a mountain goat, and massively strong. Simply walking in these vertical parts is an adventure. Raising stones to make a monolith, and having those stones move long distances is a mammoth achievement. And in this heat. Today our skin feels bleached to the bone as if the skin and flesh underneath has peeled away in layers. We passed wild pigs at one stage and I swear I smelled pork crackling. Down to Dorgoli we went, then onto what has to rate as one of the most scenic roads in the world: the stretch between Dorgoli and Baunei. Another fifty kilometres. Another two hours.

Near the top of a long spine of the Monti di Gennargentu, engineers have carved a ledge for a road south. Literally a ledge. The road hangs off the high side of the mountains: range after range of them. There were hardly any switchbacks. The road stayed at snow sign height for much of the time, with views to the west over massive grand canyons of Sardinia, and down, directly down, over the shortest guardrails, into villages dropped so far below, they looked shattered.

Built atop the road, kilometre after kilometre, are amazingly engineered snow tunnels, called galleria, with stark simple minimalist columns offering panorama and support on the view side. They'll likely still be there centuries from now, when folk in space vehicles might fly themselves by, gawping in awe at what engineers achieved way back when.