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A Sunday Telegraph article published in August 2005 highlighted the beauty of the area and described a fabulous hotel which is in our village of Arbatax, the port of Ogliastra. At the end of the Spiaggia Ponente in Arbatax, there is a fish farm and a great fish restaurant run by and for the local fishermen. |
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View from Arbatax |
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Peter & Anne Holidays |
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Cycling (road and mountain bike), walking and climbing in Ogliastra, Sardinia |
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Sardinia is incredibly beautiful and each year many tourists come especially for its clear sea and beautiful beaches. The sea in Sardinia is famous for its clarity and the beaches regularly win prizes for being Italy’s cleanest, and the diving and kayaking in Sardinia are great. See photos here. You can swim, canoe, dive and sail around the island all year. The interior of the island is less developed, and has an unspoilt beauty, like that of Scotland, and offers great cycling, rock climbing and walking as well as glimpses of a fascinating prehistoric culture. The weather is very mild (see Sardinia and Ogliastra’s climate) . A couple of very good sources of information for visitors are the web site of the Sardinia Region (in English) and of the Province of Ogliastra (from 2009 in English). |
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Ogliastra is a province in the east of Sardinia which combines mountains and sea—see our accommodation. The region is the least developed in Sardinia and is still very unspoiled. It is the most mountainous province in Sardinia and also the least populous, with only 58,389 inhabitants as of the 2001 census. What many people don’t realize is that Sardinia has a fascinating history of which its people are justly proud, with one of Europe’s most well-developed Bronze age cultures, enduring pagan rituals and its own language, Sard. Only 3 km from The Lemon House in Lotzorai are some prehistoric graves, while our downstairs neighbour in Porto Frailis is from Mamoiada and regularly performs as a Mammunthone. |
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During summer 2007 we have started working with a couple of local diving schools. One offers short dives including for only €20 a “first time dive” from the beautiful Cala Mariolu—see photo on left and more here. Another offers full PADI courses, including the possibility of doing the theory in the UK and the open water diving here. We work also with a local firm who run trips up the coast and boat hire for climbing. Many coves and beaches you can reach are inaccessible by any other method of transport. Exploring the coastline by sea kayak is becoming a favourite pastime in the region and our friend Francesco of Cardedu Kayak offers a 2 hour lesson and guided tour near Cardedu for only 20 euros. It is very easy once he has given you the confidence you need and it is SOOOO peaceful and beautiful. Click here for photos - you can kayak all year round! Click here for a video of kayaking. Click here for our kayak club president, Francesco Muntoni’s, flickr album with some photos of our guests kayaking in May 2008. |
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Region of Ogliastra (OG) |
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Sardinia Diving and Kayaking |
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Sardinia and Ogliastra |
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Mammuthones, Easter 2007, Tortolì |
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The whole of Sardinia, and Ogliastra’s no exception, is full of archeological remains from the Bronze age. Hunter-gatherer people lived in little castles called nuraghe, 7000 of whose remains are dotted all over the island. We were so struck by this fascinating history that we included in our logo (see below) the “bronzetta” from Abini, a warrior with 4 arms and 2 shields, a large steel replica of which can be found in Tortolì and which is also used by Crocchias as the logo for their tasty crisps. You can see Bronze age graves “domus de janas” at a spot only 3km from The Lemon House in Lotzorai; 10 km away is the Tomba dei Giganti shown on the left; and there are many nuraghe and other sites only a short distance away from where we live. |
