THE TOP 10 MUSEUMS IN SARDINIA

2 MUSEO NIVOLA – ORANI

On your way to Orani you will cross an idyllic landscape of Sardinian countryside with silent woods and cultivated fields dotted by tiny villages.

The last thing you would imagine when arriving at this little town of 2.800 souls nestled on the sunny side of a green hill is to find one of the best museums in Sardinia.

Yet at the top of a small road uphill you will be greeted by the sound of water in front of the town’s old public washroom. Something special will cue you in the new function of this building – stone figures, solid in their material yet transcendent in their form.

You’ll be met right away by the art of Costantino Nivola (Orani 1911 – Long Island 1988) before starting to learn about him. Trained by the best art teachers of the time he went to work as Graphic Art Director at Olivetti (the Apple company of that day) before moving with his wife Ruth Guggenheim to New York.

A friend of Le Corbusier and Saul Steinberg, Costantino Nivola worked as Art Director for Interiors and Industrial Design, got published in a myriad of publications and started teaching at Columbia University.

However, what you’ll see in this exhibition is the result of a mature level of technicality and philosophy.

You’ll witness first hand the results of a technique he invented – called sand casting – by using the sand of the beaches on Long Island.

You’ll feel the masculinity of his father figures inspired by cubism.

You’ll feel the energy transmitted by his Totems, rooted in the millenary history of Sardinia and yet reinvented.

You’ll be impressed by his mother figures, imposing in their dimensions – their bellies curved, like the walls of his home, filled with the sweet promise of love and new life.

Mason, carpenter, painter, designer, sculptor, architect, and philosopher – prepare to get touched, and a bit overwhelmed, by the life and artistic production of Nivola.

BONUS

In 1958 Nivola came back to Orani to decorate the facade of Madonna de Sa Itria Church in Orani and to set up an art exhibit in the streets of his hometown – a way to give back to his community.

The photographer Carlo Bavagnoli accompanied him and shot a series of photographs for Life Magazine. These pictures have been printed on large cardboards and you can tour Orani from picture to picture. A walk that will inspire your artistic soul as well as the photographer in you.

info@museonivola.it | +39-0784-730-063 | MuseoNivola.it

3 STAZIONE DELL’ARTE – ULASSAI

Your next stop is the Art Station. Formerly the end of the line for all trains coming from Cagliari, it now hosts a beautiful collection of works by Maria Lai – one of the greatest Italian artists of the last century.

She took what her hometown was renowned for – weaving – and brought it to a whole new level by merging it with art, legend and philosophy.

Make sure to book an English speaking guide because you don’t want to miss a thing about what’s behind each weaving masterpiece – which include the Book of the Fairies.

BONUS

Ulassai hosts an open-air museum parkour that unites 14 works of art dotting the small village of Ulassai.

info@stazionedellarte.it | +39-0782-787-055 | StazioneDellArte.com

4 MUSEO DELEDDIANO – NUORO

By visiting the house of 1926 Nobel laureate Grazia Deledda (1871-1936) you’ll travel back to the early 1900s, a time when in Nuoro a group of young poets, writers, painters and sculptors were influencing so much the Italian artistic landscape that the town started to be referred to as “Athens of Sardinia”.

When wandering around the rooms in this house-museum look at the tables, beds, kitchen utensils and imagine a young woman so passioned about spreading the incredible stories of her people that she spent endless hours at her desk day-dreaming and writing.

BONUS

You can do more than just imagining. You can walk through the streets of her hometown – the city centre has changed little – and imagine it alive with stories of love, envy, regret, joy and hope.

In fact, it was her “profound understanding of human problems” that made her the second woman ever to be awarded a Nobel Prize for literature.

You can even walk the 15 minutes that separate her home from the small ancient Church of Solitude (Chiesa della Solitudine). Her human remains are resting in a polished black marble coffin inside the church at the feet of Mount Ortobene – her holy mountain.

If you’ll walk 100 meters from the ancient church down the path into the pinewood you’ll come across an abstract monument in her honour. Designed by the great Sardinian artist Maria Lai, it marks the beginning of the path to the summit of Mount Ortobene. Ideally, Grazia Deledda’s soul walked that path when leaving to higher places.

Decide for yourself whether you want to follow that trekking route – make sure you have comfortable shoes and water unless you want to cross over to the other side too – or head back down into town, perhaps on your way to your next Museum.

In fact, you can combine entry to this museum with the Sardinian Ethnographic Museum – also on our top 10

On the other hand, why not explore Nuoro? After all, it’s a great one-day destination.

isresardegna@isresardegna.org | +39-0784-242-900 / +39-0784-258-088 | MuseoDeleddiano.it

5 MUSEO ARCHEOLOGICO CIVICO – CABRAS

If you are arriving at this museum from the archaeological site of Tharros – the most expansive site in Sardinia – you will be struck by how tiny the red construction appears.

However, enter the building on the rivers of the Cabras lake and you’ll find it bigger than it looked – well, not by much.

There are three things you can take away from this place. You can see and learn a lot about how Romans used to transport their precious commodities.

You can learn about the people that lived in a settlement nearby about 5.000 years ago.

Then you can pass to the number one reason this museum draws crowds of visitors, namely seven white stone figures of archers, boxers, and warriors that are possibly the most ancient stand-alone statues in the whole Mediterranean. More ancient than the Greek kouroi and second only to the Egyptian sculptures.

At 2.5 meters of height, the Giants of Mount Prama will impress you for their totemic power. You might be equally impressed by the 5 years of work that took the crew to put back together the different pieces of the statues. Or then again, by the advancements reached by the people of Sardinia between 1.100 and 1.000 BC, when the statues had been sculpted.

Did you know that many historians have started believing that the ancient Atlantis was really the island of Sardinia? After paying a visit to these Giants you might be starting to think so too.

BONUS

You can combine the entry of this Museum with the entry to the Phoenician and Roman town of Tharros, as well as the Spanish tower at the archaeological site on the sea.

info@museocabras.it | +39-0783-290-636 | MuseoCabras.it

6 MUSEO ARCHEOLOGICO NAZIONALE DI CAGLIARI

If you are looking for the one place where all the most incredible and well-preserved findings of the last 6.000 years in Sardinia are kept, you can stop looking.

A bit overwhelming perhaps, but the beauty of the items on show will make up for it.

BONUS

For a small additional fee, you can get access to the Pinacoteca Nazionale – the biggest permanent exhibit of Sardinian paintings.

pm-sar.prenotmuseoarcheo.ca@beniculturali.it | +39-070-605-18245 / +39-070-655-911 / +39-070-605-18240 | MuseoArcheoCagliari.it

7 COMPENDIO GARIBALDINO DI CAPRERA

What do you do after having fought wars in South America and Europe as commander, annexing the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies to the Kingdom of Italy with only a thousand men, serving as Grand Master of the Grand Orient Masonic order, and being regarded as the greatest hero of Italy? If your name is Giuseppe Garibaldi, you buy the island of Caprera and retire to tend your orchard.

It only sounds reductive if you’ve never been to Caprera. Astoundingly beautiful little coves and enough good earth to grow vegetables and keep animals.

Garibaldi retired to live like a prince in disguise, one enamoured with the meaningful things in life, namely his family, his writing, his reading, and those simple pleasures for which the Kings of France had to build a park in Versailles, one in the looks of a shepherd’s cottage.

There might not be a swimming pool, running hot water, or centralised heating but you might find yourself envying Garibaldi a little after a tour of his house.

BONUS

Tour the small island and visit some of the most spectacular beaches of Sardinia, including Cala Coticcio, one of The Top 10 Beaches in Sardinia.

pm-sar.museigaribaldi.caprera@beniculturali.it

+39-0789-727-162 / +39-0789-726-015

CompendioGaribaldinoDiCaprera.it

8 MUSEO ETNOGRAFICO SARDO – NUORO

Who are the inhabitants of Sardinia? How do they dress like for festivals? What kind of food do they prepare when celebrating their protective Saints?

If you want to find out you can try out this museum.

Styled like a small Sardinian village, you can enter every house or room and see for yourself the utensils, the tapestry, and the furniture that are truly Sardinian.

BONUS

For a small additional fee, you can include the entry ticket to Museo Deleddiano

isresardegna@isresardegna.org | +39-0784-257-035 / +39-0784-242-900 | ISRESardegna.it

9 MINIERA MONTEVECCHIO

Did you know that the mining and extraction industries in Sardinia had been so relevant as to convince the UNESCO to create the first Geopark in the world in 1998?

The Geomineral Historic and Environmental Park of Sardinia extends over 3.500 hectares of land in 8 different areas of the island, each preserving existing mines, infrastructures and the environmental integrity of the surroundings.

The biggest extraction site lies close to Montevecchio, which at the height of its extraction activities housed 5.000 inhabitants.

Are you ready to enter a ghost town and travel back through time to the 1900s?

info@minieramontevecchio.it | +39-338-459-2082 / +39-389-164-3692 / +39-070-973-173 | MinieraMontevecchio.it

10 MUSEO DELL’INTRECCIO MEDITERRANEO DI CASTELSARDO

If you get to Castelsardo and walk the streets of the old medieval town you’ll want to visit this museum regardless of its exhibition.

In fact, the MIM is hosted in the Castle of the Doria family, rulers of this town and the surroundings between 1250 and 1450. This building lies literally on the top of the hill and is completely unmissable as all roads seem to lead to it – not by chance.

Don’t expect anything fancy. The Castle itself looks more like a continuation of the rock on which it is built than a palace. This can be explained by the need to keep it a defensive stronghold against pirates and rival States.

What it hosts, however, is both simple and complex just as it is delicate and robust. It’s the result of specific techniques developed over the course of thousands of years starting from the first fishermen boats made out of reeds tied together in Cabras, namely basketweaving.

A guild of basketweavers never formed so the art was passed on orally from generation to generation, a sort of game taught by grandparents to their grandchildren.

If you meet some women weaving baskets in the old town try and ask them to teach you. They’ll probably politely refuse because you are not their grandchild. For you, there’s the museum. Fair enough.

direzione.museointreccio@gmail.com | +39-079-470-220 / +39-347-111-8547 | MIMCastelsardo.it