Ittiri day ride

November 5, 2023

Exploring the Interior

Rain and wind overnight, but we woke to mixed skies with strong winds. We were both still full from last night’s amazing dinner.

We did some forward planning, then headed out for a day trip.

First stop was for a coffee and cornetto in town, less than 2 km from the agriturismo. Then we headed to the grocery store to pick up a few breakfast and lunch items. Afterwards, we left town with the goal of visiting an ancient tomb site north of Ittiri.

We immediately dropped into a valley for a ‘shortcut’ that had us pushing out biked up the other side. When we emerged onto the very quiet provincial rosd, we saw lots of olive trees prepped for harvest.

Then we dropped into what we decided to call Artichoke Valley. Sardinia is known for having its own variety of spiny artichoke. Harvest seems to be underway, although nobody was working on this Sunday.

One problem - although the exploration was interesting, there was no exit from the valley because the irrigation ditch was full of running water and also choked with invasive bamboo. We backtracked and found another route that was signed as ‘closed’, but we could squeeze our bikes past the concrete barriers on the bridge.

There are sheep, goats, and pigs at the agriturismo. There’s always a goat who’s got to be a jerk.

Descending to start our ride. The concrete had all sorts of sheep footprints.

We learned that there are foxes in Sardinia, because we saw a dead one on the road.

After our exit from Artichoke Valley, it was a big climb to the necropoli on the very quiet road. This tomb site isn’t a popular spot, but it is super interesting. It is called Necropoli ipogea Mesu 'e Montes. The domus de Janas (or ‘fairy houses’) are set along the sides of a trail and they contain worship and funerary symbols, together with architectural elements of Neolithic huts so that the dead could have a home for eternity (except someone cleaned out the tombs at some point, so eternity didn’t last forever in this case). The tombs are dug into a limestone layer. There are 18 tombs all with more than one room, located on either side of the trail. They are reported to have been excavated and used starting in the 3rd millennium BCE, from the Neolithic period to the end of the Bronze Age.

After our tour of the tombs, we climbed back to town and stopped for a beer at our morning coffee stop. A couple of hunters dropped in, dressed in orange. We didn’t find out what they had been hunting.

It wasn’t possible to get a light supper at our agriturismo - it was multi-course only. So we biked into town with our headlights and had an excellent pizza at a place that was doing a booming takeout business, but we were the only sit-down clients. It was nice to be back in our room before 8 pm. Outside the pizzeria we encountered an older gentleman who questioned us in Italian about biking. He was excited to hear where we had been, and shook our hands when he heard how far we’d come. Every Sardinian person we’ve met has been welcoming and friendly.

There were two chefs from Vancouver staying at the agriturismo tonight. We enjoyed chatting with them over tea - they’d just been particating in food tours of Sicily and Puglia; one of them was fluent in Italian and was the tour organizer.

The squiggles tell the tale of our navigational challenges.

Today's ride: 40 km (25 miles)
Total: 365 km (227 miles)

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