Agriturismo su Nuratolu was located on an isolated hilltop about a mile away from the nearest village. From the two lane road we got onto a one lane road and then finally a dirt track that brought us to the main building. It was locked and seemed completely deserted. This didn't worry me very much as the property appeared to be maintained and I figured someone would come by before long. We hadn't had any personal communication with anyone at the agriturismo before we arrived. We had just used the reservation system on their website and received an automated confirmation. I wandered around the rest of the buildings, including what appeared to be the accommodations, but I didn't see any sign of staff or guests. I couldn't call their number as there was no cell phone reception so I let the kids out of the car to wander around.
It was about half an hour before a car arrived and the family that ran the agriturismo got out and looked at us bemusedly. A young woman spoke a little English and communicated that they hadn't been aware anyone was coming that day, but it wouldn't be a problem. We would be the only overnight guests but they had people coming for dinner and there would be plenty of food for us. The kids played with the dogs and jumped on the trampoline while we moved our bags to a couple of very plain bedrooms. The man in charge of things was about my age. He handed me a plastic cup and said something that sounded like "Fermentino", which I figured meant some kind of brandy like I'd been given in Dorgali. It turned out to be white wine and I realized it was Vermentino, the main Sardinian white grape. It seemed that dinner was still a couple of hours away so we decided to use the time to visit Tinnura, another of Sardinia's mural villages. 
Tinnura was a tiny village of about two hundred and fifty people, basically comprised of the intersection of two rural roads. As we approached the village our progress was temporarily halted by a large flock of sheep being herded by a guy slowly driving a jeep behind them. Tinnura was adjacent to another tiny village called Flussio and the boundary between them was delineated by a monolithic sign surrounded by clay amphoras. A little further inside the town a sculpture of a woman sat in the middle of the town with an amphora in her lap. It was a theme we were already familiar with from Oristano.
There was more sculpture along the main street but the predominant form of artwork was the mural. Similarly to San Sperate, the murals depicted scenes from rural life with a high degree of verisimilitude, often using trompe l'oeil to turn the sides of houses into barns and fields. 
Some of the murals had been painted by Pinuccio Sciola, the same artist whose work we had admired in San Sperate a couple of hours to the south. We had a lot of fun strolling the length of the village and inserting ourselves into the pastoral scenes that we passed by. At one point I caught two real horseback riders just as they passed the side of a house that had been painted with horses of an identical color.
Tinnura was admittedly somewhat similar to San Sperate but I really didn't mind touring more of the beautiful painted houses. It seemed like more than a few of these small Sardinian villages had decided on this approach to attract their share of the island's limited visitors. Tinnura didn't have San Sperate's picturesque little alleys but the townsfolk obviously cared deeply about the appeal of their homes which were painted in warm tones and beautifully landscaped.
By the time we returned to Su Nuratolu it was time for dinner to begin. As with the agriturismo dinner near Dorgali we were initially plied with cheese and cured ham which we largely ignored. The main course was once again suckling pig, which seemed to be de rigeur at the Sardinian agriturismos, but it was an impressive presentation of whole black piglets that were brought for display at the table before they were divided among the participants. We made sure to request some feet and one of the heads.
In the morning there wasn't any breakfast to be had. We packed up and I took a final look around the property while the kids went back on the trampoline. I realized I could see all the way to the Mediterranean from our elevated position. I was glad that we were done with agroturismos for the rest of the trip. It was an interesting experience but the approach to food was extremely similar in the two we had tried and I missed the personality of a private apartment in the city.
After Cagliari, Bosa was the city I had most anticipated visiting in Sardinia. The city is famous for its colorful, slender houses that creep up Serravalle Hill from the north bank of the Temo River. The Temo is Sardinia's only navigable river although it only runs about thirty miles from Lake Temo to the sea. Many of the buildings along the river were once tanneries, as Sardinia was historically known throughout Europe for their leather. The houses extend halfway up the hill which is capped by the twelfth century Malaspina Castle. 
I had done enough research to know that there was free parking to be had along the street that ran next to the river on the southern bank. We crossed the Temo via the Ponte Vecchio and arrived at the Cattedrale dell'Immacolata Concezione, featuring two cupolas covered with majolica tiles. 
Aside from the street that passed alongside the river, there were only a couple of roads that ran lengthwise through the historic center before the town started to rise up along the hillside. This neighborhood, called Sa Costa, developed in medieval times due to the protection from pirates afforded by the hilltop castle. The buildings here weren't that much different from in the old neighborhoods of Cagliari, although perhaps just a bit more colorful.
Some of the townsfolk were quite creative at beautifying their building façades with plants. One industrious gardener had coaxed a thick vine to frame his windows up to the fourth story. Since there hadn't been any breakfast at the agriturismo we fueled up the kids with pizza and sandwiches at a cafe before we began tackling the hill.
Once we reached the base of the hill, the cross-streets became alleyways with long cobblestone pavement steps. There were hardly any tourists in the town at this early hour and none of them except us had started to migrate up the hill so we were completely alone as we navigated upward through these narrow passages.
The upper levels of the town were serene and exceptionally beautiful. There was much more sky and daylight here as the buildings weren't so tall and there were some gaps revealing the hillside. Explosions of oleander and bougainvillea added color to old stone walls. We came across a woman creating a type of embroidery called filet lace, which is a specialty of Bosa. These ladies sit outside their little shops in the old town demonstrating their craft, hoping to entice visitors inside to make a purchase. Some of these women are over ninety years old and have been creating the lace since they were children.
Bosa is known for being the most colorful town in Sardinia, which is no small achievement as many towns on the island have a tradition of painting their houses in bright hues. Photographs of Bosa taken by drones look like works of modern art with splashes of turquoise, deep purple, and bright orange among more traditional Italian colors. The most vibrantly hued buildings are on the upper levels of the town and walking amongst them felt like being on a movie set. No one seems to know how or when these vivid colors became so popular in Bosa but it is clear they have become a source of pride to the locals, and also a revenue base because they attract a lot of tourism to the town.
A long staircase ascended the bare section of the hill up to Castello Malaspina. The Malaspinas were a line of the Longobard House of Obertenghi who gained control over western Sardinia via an alliance with Pisa. The Malaspina dello Spino Secco branch of the family settled in Sardinia in the eleventh century and built the castle on Serravalle Hill to consolidate control over the region. According to legend the original Marquis Malaspina dello Spino Secco was quite cruel both to his wife and to his subjects. The Malaspinas were eventually driven from Sardinia in the fourteenth century by the advancing Aragonese who ultimately seized control of the entire island. The only remnants of the castle are the outer walls and watchtowers, although there were some old cannon scattered around that were placed there during some later conflict. 
The views from the watchtower were amazing. We could see the Temo winding from the town towards the sea where there was another small settlement called Bosa Marina. I could see the town was sitting in a river valley with tall hills on every side. Most of the vividly colored façades were invisible from above but there were still some bright patches of pigment among the sea of tightly clustered red roofs. On the northwest slope of Serravalle Hill was the town cemetery, which I initially mistook for a collection of shipping containers due to the unusual appearance of the stacked, above-ground tombs. 
Mei Ling and I hadn't eaten anything yet so we were ready to try one of Bosa's well-regarded restaurants for lunch. We dropped back down to the bottom level of Sa Costa and wandered into a very picturesque neighborhood of little alleys and quiet squares that we hadn't discovered on our first time through. We didn't find any restaurants to our liking that were open for lunch on Sunday but we did find one of the most atmospheric little piazzas in the entire town. Someone had set up a group of stone benches surrounded by planters so that people could sit and chat as though the piazza was an enormous living room. A plaque on one stone seemed to dedicate the installation to Pinuccio Sciola, the sculptor and muralist we were familiar with from San Sperate and Tinnura. 
Eventually we had lunch at a place called Sa Pischedda on the opposite side of the river, close to where we had parked. It was reasonably good but not memorable aside from the pleasant outdoor patio. Our next stop would be Alghero, another coastal city about an hour north along the coast.
This featured blog entry was written by zzlangerhans from the blog Fledgling Explorers.
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