The best city hikes and walks in the Sardinia Mountains

The church is locked and can only be viewed from the outside

In the diary of his pilgrimage on the Way of St. James, which was published later, the German entertainer Hape (Hans-Peter) Kerkeling also writes about the meditative experience of praying the Rosary together, which he experienced himself in the “grandiose village church, which has the makings of a cathedral” of Castildelgado (Castile). Under the date June 21, 2001, he notes: “I simply must see the only tourist attraction in town! (…) She is all the more pleased that I want to see the jewel of Castildelgado and accompanies me inside. Our tour quickly ends in front of the altar, and so the woman asks me to take a seat in one of the wonderfully cool pews. Gradually, other people enter the church. The older lady begins to pray the rosary. The monotonous chanting has a calming effect, and the constantly repeating lament gives strength, security, and peace! So, after I can recite the words along with her, I join in the mantra…” (Hape Kerkeling in “I’m Off Then: My Journey on the Camino de Santiago”)

Séuna is the first Nuoro, the farmers' neighborhood. Satta depicts it as a "cluster of small, single-story houses," dirt courtyards enclosed by dry-stone walls, and "cassi" (small boxes) at the doorstep: an order born from disorder. In the center, the little Church of the Grazie: simple, rustic, almost a house like any other, surmounted by a pediment with a bell. Here, Satta places a crucial part of his popular chorus: the peasant-priest, the vegetable garden, the almsgiving, the minimal rites of a very poor but cohesive community. Séuna, he says, could be a seaside village "if there were a sea": instead, there is a merciless white light that splits the shadows of the courtyards and accompanies the funerals that, as they pass, force the "lords of Tettamanzi" to rise and uncover their heads. Strolling today through the narrow streets that climb toward the Corso means recognizing the material grammar of the novel: courtyards, gates, irregular paving stones. Stop in front of the church facade and look at the low houses: you'll understand why Satta, in his "balance sheets," makes Séuna the origin of the village and at the same time its limit—proud, industrious, poor. It's the necessary counterpoint to the city of courts, classrooms, and cafés.

The house on the corner of Via Angioy and Via Sebastiano Satta is the author's biographical and fictional fulcrum. Now owned by the diocese, it houses a residential community: a purpose consistent with the charitable legacy left to the Satta-Galfré family. In the novel, the building becomes the setting for a domestic sociology: the notary's upper-floor study, the ground-floor living room, the constant ascents and descents of stairs too solemn for a provincial home. Ahead, the dark palace of engineer Mannu: Satta makes it the reverse shot of his own home, describing a "capital" project descended upon a village that had "made itself" over the centuries. Don't miss the rear courtyards: Satta evokes them as a "series of courtyards" that end in a small vegetable garden, with an oleander hated by Donna Vincenza—minimal details that become domestic symbols (poison, obstinacy, time). The street door ("portoncino") is contrasted by the large portal facing the countryside, a metaphor for the two faces of the house and its inhabitants: one public, controlled; the other open to the wind and the crops. Passing by today, one understands how Satta's architecture is above all an architecture of memory.

The "Church of Souls" may look relatively old, but it was only built in the 18th century. It has a beautiful Baroque façade in the entrance area.

There are many churches to discover on a walk through Orosei.

Slightly "larger" city in the area

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