Showing 1-20 of 161 fieldnotes. Most recent first | Next 20 
Visited 26 Sept 2012.
West of Ronda, marked on most road maps and easily located with a big sign from the road to a parking area with info boards.
A series of uneven and slippery-when-wet stone steps lead from the car park up to the cave entrance and ticket hut (which also serves drinks in season), where there is a covered waiting area. The entrance fee varies by total group size - 8 euros pp reducing to 7 if there are more than 15 people on a tour. The maximum tour size is 25.
By 4pm, a group of 20 or so had gathered and the entrance was unlocked so we could all move into a foyer area, where the guide lit and distributed battery lanterns for the visitors, and filled his paraffin lamp. I had a small head torch which came in handy, though your own torch is far from essential. The tour was mainly in Spanish with a few words of English added; one of the other visitors was leading a group of Scandinavian and German tourists, and he kindly translated a fair amount of info into multiple languages for everyone.
The tour lasts just over an hour, progressing through the cave system looking at the rock formations, explaining history and discovery, with fabulous cave paintings along the way. The end point is the painting of a huge fish .... then a faster walk back along the same route to the entrance.
There are lots of steps within the caves, so I would recommend to reasonably sure-footed visitors. On the way back, we crossed with the next tour starting .... which included family groups, one with children of around 2 and 5 years, and another with screaming baby in papoose .... the latter changed their minds and left .... it's really not a visit for little ones imo.
Please note - no photography past the entrance area, you will be asked to leave if you try to sneak a few shots. This may be to keep the light levels reasonably constant, but also repeated camera flashes would have ruined the ambience of the visit.
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258 menhirs in 7 groups, in a glorious setting. It's about 1.3km from the road to the alignment, along a wide but rutted track with a reasonably sharp climb to start. We weren't entirely sure of the location and there was a fair bit of "are you sure ..." on the way, but so glad we trusted out instincts and spent a very pleasant couple of hours exploring the stones, chilling out under the magnificent oak tree, and trying to find the 3 carved stones we'd read about.
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It's huge! Almost on the scale as Sa Coveccada
across the water in Sardinia. The sign specifies the capstone as 3.4m x 2.9m, and it's tall enough to stand up inside.
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A stunning spot! Dozens of menhirs in a copse, explored in dappled sunlight. A confusion of rows, some dating to around 5000 BCE. In a gated area, but with full access allowing witnessed stone hugging.
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Two rows of stones running N-S with some great examples of carved swords and faces.
Picture taken in May - the wild grass and flowers are lovely but do hide some of the carving.
Fenced in, but only a few metres away.
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A site group consisting of the alignments of Stantari and Renaju, and the fabulous dolmen Cauria Fontanaccia. The location given is the beginning of the track to the group, and there is space to park here. Free and open access, no facilities.
Well worth spending a few hours here! It's about 500m from the track / car park to Stantari.
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Corsica's "show site" and signposted from miles and miles away (erratically, of course!).
Entrance fee, gift shop, museum, refreshments etc.
A path from the entrance gate takes you past the museum to a paved square where Filitosa V (3m tall, fabulously carved) has been re-erected. There's a boundary wall before the main part of the site, with a barrow to the left and the central monument ahead. Now, we'd become aware of new age twinkly pan-pipe type music as we entered the complex, and thought it was coming from the museum - but no, piped all round the site. And this was not the only unwelcome modern feature - rather than having info boards placed at a distance from the important features of the complex, there are metal obelisks set in concrete providing audio on demand in a variety of languages. Oh!
The official website gives a good description of the site, so I won't ...
Crossing the stream, the muzak was finally drowned out by the croaking of frogs and the speakers had not been continued on the other side where 5 impressive stones have been re-sited, with a quarry beyond.
Phallic stones - 10/10
Atmosphere - 2/10
Take earplugs or your own audio distraction to enjoy the complex fully!
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Northwest of the groups of tombs so visible from the access track, and in line with the field boundary, this tomb is just to the right of the path.
A short dromos, into a chamber with a central pillar and a niche opposite the entrance, and then two doors to the right. Climbing through, you're on a little rocky platform and the ground slopes away towards 4 doors set up from floor level and with a magnificent step to reach the farthest to the left, and a further chamber beyond the second left.
Something about this made me think of the fantastic Hal Saflieni Hypogeum on Malta - but on a much smaller scale of course. I spent what seemed like ages just sat enjoying the cool and the calm and the shafts of sunlight illuminating the entrance.
As in Tomb XVI a twice trepanned skull (image linked) was found here - though this person was not so lucky .... they didn't survive the second operation.
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I couldn't believe my eyes when I found the plan of this tomb .....
The long dromos or corridor was partly flooded so I'd climbed down into in it where it narrows, and straight in to the main chamber (pictured) with doors at the centre of each of the walls. I'd also noted a chamber to the side of its antichamber, but didn't realise quite how extensive either part was. Take a look at the plan!
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One of the most important tombs at this site, and we didn't find it. It's in the area of scrubby vegetation between the very visible tombs such as Tomb VIII and the buildings you pass on the track to get here - hence the grid reference is not absolutely accurate.
It was found still sealed with a slab, and finds included burials from around 2000BCE (though other finds have been noted from the much ealier Ozieri culture) and a twice trepanned skull.
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This holy well is right in the centre of Perfugas, next to the church. It was discovered in 1923, and named after the owner of the garden it occupies.
The area around has been partly excavated, but it's the well itself that's the shining star in white limestone. There's a passageway and then steps down into the well chamber with its perfectly circular cross section.
It's fenced off and locked! I enquired at the library on the corner about a key, and was directed to the museum and tourist information .... right at the far end of town on a scorching hot day. When we got there - shut!
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We'd been to the village of Rebeccu 18 months previously, just after visiting the nearby domus de janas Sant' Andrea Priu and not found this, but we had better instructions this time ...
Drive into the village and park in the main square. Exit the main square on foot opposite the way you came in, and follow the path which bends to the right, leaving the village, and Snow White and the 7 Dwarves (no kidding, a full set of gnomes adorn the house on the way) to your right, with open fields falling away to the left. Another path from the village joins from the right, and less than 100m later, there's a track to the left with a signpost "Fonte".
The path was being cleared for the summer, and we exchanged greetings with 4 groups of men, scythes in hand but all taking breaks, on the way. About 150m along, there's a tiny wooden bridge, and the font is up on the right.
An incredibly verdant setting! If not for the grass cutters, we'd have had to wade through chest high greenery to get here!
The Nuraghic font itself is a tholos style chamber; water flows along a groove through the entrance hatch (about 60cm square) in the basalt block frontage and zigzags along the entrance hallway (about 5m long) and drains away under a paving slab at the end.
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On the main road, right in the centre of Sedini, the tombs are cut into a massive 12m limestone block. Dated to around 3000BCE, in more recent times it's been used as a jail, but now houses a museum (apparently - siesta time, all quiet and closed up when we were there).
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A slight accidental detour took us through Padria, and in the village we spotted one of the brown signs directing us to an archaelogical area.
Follow the signs - part way along, there's a huge map at the roadside of areas of interest in the vicinity - and right at the end of the road there's a gate on the left with a path and steps climbing the hill.
On the plateau, there are nuraghic village huts - hard to work out in the long grass - and the nuraghe itself is to the left behind a tree. It doesn't look that impressive ..... till you get round the other side!
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On the SS292 south of Villanova Monteleone, with great views towards Lago de Temo.
It was 2pm on a gloriously hot day; the site is fenced off and a recently adapted notice said that it would open at 14:30, so we sat in the car park and had a picnic, and read. And waited. No sign of anyone, we waited another 10 mins and then decided to wait no longer. Beardy took the direct route of over the tall padlocked gates, and I went for the walk along the drystone wall between the barbed wire approach. For future reference, the easiest method if needed is the exit I used - under the tree at the corner of the road and carpark!
The entrance fee is 1½ euros, and we left sufficient coins on a stone by the ticket hut, in case someone appeared ...
There are 9 tombs here, set into two outcrops of rock, of which the most interesting is no 8, with its main chamber (through an anti chamber) having a ceiling carved to represent a roof and rafters, and a false door to the afterlife. The tombs mainly have double framed entrances and cups in the floor of the anti-chambers for offerings, and grooves which I assumed where for drainage.
Admittedly, we'd missed some carvings (other than the architectural features) here, but for a signposted, pay to enter site, I was a little disappointed, compared to what we'd seen already (and without knowing where our next stop would be, the fabulous Santu Pedru).
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We'd driven north through Putifigari in search of Laccaneddu tomba di gigante (in vain, with poor babelfished directions and no signposting) and had planned to head for a beach and relax, but chief navigator Beardy spotted this on one of my bits of mapping and announced it was right on the road, on the way back.
Heading west towards Olmedo on the 127bis, there's a sign for this site about 400m before it, at a right turn. Don't turn right, but watch out for the layby contained within the slip roads of the junction as it's probably the best place to park.
Tomb 1 really is right up against the road.
A 16m corridor first - with a metal gate padlocked across the entrance, but someone had already bent back one of the bars and we were able to squeeze into the anti chamber with an impressive entrance to the main part of the tomb. Apparently discovered by chance 1959, still sealed by the stone slabs of the Bonnanaro culture circa 1600BCE.
I donned my headtorch and climbed in ....
The first room has two massive pillars supporting it, and a false door carved into the wall immediately facing the entrance. It's huge .... and dark! The torch wasn't thowing out much light at all, so I had to rely on the trusty method of flash photography and was immediately spooked by the shape on the right hand wall. The walls are painted in blood coloured ochre with carved doors, but I looked for the bulls horns mentioned in one set of research notes in vain.
A series of rooms lead off this main chamber, with their doors set maybe 3ft high in the walls. With limited light, I didn't climb in but have included a link to a diagram of the whole layout.
So, some not so dainty wiggling back through the main entrance and the bent gate, to explore the slopes of the hill ....
There are another 8 tombs up here!
The entrance area to one was flooded with thousands of tadpoles in the murky green water, and another was mainly collapsed. Further up though, crawling into a tomb revealed another huge double pillared room with chambers off it. Even though I'd been warned there was one in there, I couldn't help but shriek as the resident bat swooped past me .....
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Oh my! Wow! It took a while for us to find this place, we'd been trying to get to it from the wrong road.
Easiest - from Monte D'Accoddi, you are forced to turn south along the 131 towards Sassari (and it should be noted, there are two bits of 131 round here, you want the east branch to find the altar). At the first opportunity, turn back on yourself, pass the entrance to Monte D'Accoddi again, and straight on at the next side turns - you'll see a Q8 petrol station on the other carriageway and then 24km marker just before a large cluster of dilapidated buildings. Turn right (obviously!) here and choose the left hand one of the two tracks in front of you and drive to the end at the back of some houses.
The tombs start right at the edge of the track and continue across the scrub land between the fields. I'd seen a couple of images online and knew I had to visit, but wasn't expecting quite what was found ..... and further research reveals more we missed too!
The site has incredibly deep cart ruts - like those found on Malta for example at Clapham Junction - running across it.
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Mystery solved!
Having located its neighbour, it would have been rude to pass only a few km from Li Mizzani and we were feeling still in need of a good tomba having spent most of the week exploring domus je janas (groups of rock cut tombs).
The site had been so busy on our previous visit, we weren't surprised to see a few cars parked along the fence. We wandered in, to find just 4 people there, and in a combination of Italian, German and English, struck up conversation, and were fed delicious local cheese for our efforts. Cheers, Salvatore!
A couple of A4 laminates hung in the tree confirmed - the magnetic energy here is being used for natural healing!
I'm not sure about the claims that it can cure glaucoma and infertility, amongst other things, but this certainly is a beautiful place with a definite charm. I'll be back again.
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Follow the directions to Li Mizzani, but at the fork in the road where you turn left for that now signposted site, go right following signs to a church instead. Keep going, not far past the path to the church and 2.2km from the turn, you'll find an old wooden ladder and a more modern white metal one to help you climb over the dry stone wall under a tree on the right, with a fallen info board.
There's more than a tomba here!
A fallen menhir, the remains of a round building and a more recent rectangular building too.
The tomba itself ... sadly ruinous; there's no stele, no funeral corridor, all that remains is the esedra and that's quite overgrown. You could almost miss it while standing in front of it.
One for completists - we'd driven part way down the road 18 months before and not found this site, so I'd been determined to see what was there ....
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A short distance north east of the pretty fishing village of Marsaxlokk is Tas-Silg temple. I knew it wasn't officially open to the public, but decided to go and take a look anyway. The site has a reasonably tall wall round it, and the gates are chunks of solid metal. Nothing to see here, without an appointment!
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Showing 1-20 of 161 fieldnotes. Most recent first | Next 20 |
Yorkshire based stone searcher and Cope music fan with intentions to be tidy and green, and with a fondness for baking.
Married to Beardy - at Castlerigg - and honeymooned round Perthshire, Aberdeenshire, and the Western Isles.
Recently taken to European excursions.
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