on your kindle!Mastruga - Goat Skin for the Fashionista
■ May 5, 06:23 AM by James Martin
What is the well attired travel writer bopping around in these days? Well, if you go by the picture, donning a mastruga or mastruca might be just the thing for the start of the new millennium. It’s an ancient Sardinian skin outfit worn by shepherds past—also called best’ e peddi. The Romans got a bit snotty over the dress, calling the Sardinians they found “Sardi pelliti” or the pelted Sards. One does not make this out to be a compliment.
My research (well, ok guide Paola Loi’s research) defines the mastruga as an ancient “microfiber”, cool in summer and warm in winter. All the more reason to wear one in modern times, as we head back to the stone age after a few filthy rich people win all the wealth, leaving the rest of us a shriveled husk of a planet.
Interestingly, the roots of the word mastruga are found all over Europe. It’s pretty likely that Romanians and Germans were pretty much decked out the same when they were happy and productive barbarians. Today the Mastruga is featured at pretty much every festival in Sardinia, especially at the costume extravaganza called the Festival of Sant’Efisio in Cagliari on the first of May.
The hat is called sa berritta, the traditional “beret” knit in a tube form and set upon the head in a variety of ways, including jauntily. They were typical shepherds hats in the 1800s, when the traditional costume started to become more lavish and distinctive.
So look for a mastruga shop coming soon to a boutique mall near you. Goat or sheepskin? It’s pretty much the only decision you ‘ll have to make. One size fits all. But get the accessories. That shepherds stick really rounds out the outfit, don’t you think?
(Grazie to our model, Martha Bakerjian of Italy Travel)
Italy Travel Toolbox
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Sardinia Inside Out Travel App
■ Jun 8, 12:58 PM by James Martin
Ladies and gents, I’m proud to announce the birth of a new travel app for one of my favorite places in the whole, wide world, the island of Sardinia! We’ve decided to call it Sardinia Inside Out with yours truly being a sort of outsider who labored in Sardinia’s hot summer sun to excavate a Nuragic village over several summers, and tour guide extraordinaire Paola Loi being the insider.
The Stats
Sardinia Inside Out has 870 pictures and over 200 text entries, representing the best of Sardinia, from lace-making to sacred horse races. Each attraction is mapped on a Google map—and you don’t have to be connected to the internet to see the map. There’s a good deal about the traditional foods of Sardinia, recommended restaurants, bars, and where to shop for traditional goods, from rugs to lace to saffron (yes, Sardinia is a major producer of saffron!)
H4. Where do I get this bodacious guide to Sardinia?
In the app store, of course. It costs a mere $2.99, and updates are free (and we’ll be adding to the app this fall): Sardinia Inside Out on the App Store. There is also an Android version.
The People
Paola Loi is profiled in Martha’s Italy Travel page: Paola Loi – Personal Tour Guide for Sardinia. Paola’s husband Sascha contributed many of the fine photographs you’ll find in the guide, and is an expert on lodging. His guidance produced some very unique and interesting lodging recommendations you’ll find in the guide.
And me you know. Or maybe not. Here you’ll find some of the odd jobs I do and yes, that’s my bug-eyed fear of finding someone with a camera pointed at me in the courtyard of a Nuraghe. If you don’t know what a nuraghe is, you need our guide.
And perhaps you need our auxilarary web site, too: Wandering Sardinia
Lace Making in Sardinia
■ Mar 30, 01:38 AM by James Martin
Giovanna Ledda is an amazing woman. She’ll be 92 in August of 2012. She makes lace. Not just any lace, but a particular type of Sardinian lace called “Bosa Filet Lace” from the town where Giovanna lives on the west coast of Sardinia between Alghero and Oristano. It is a lace born out of a fisherman’s net making, an endeavor well known in Bosa.
Today Giovanna’s hands fly through the stitches, but perhaps not as fast as they used to. She told us that in her prime (shortly after she learned how to make lace at age 12 in order to help feed the family) her hands were so fast you couldn’t see them while she worked.
We made pictures. We made a video. Her hands were still fast enough to blur in both.
So I asked her what was the secret to her long and productive life. Her advice? “Eat everything. Get some sun. Walk everywhere.”
Guide Paola Loi stepped in to ask, “but what of your worries? What do you do if you have them?”
“Tell them to take a walk, too!”
And to watch Giovanna looping her needle through the grid of thread, it’s apparent her strategy works, even on an island known for its longevity.
See the video and learn more about Bosa: Bosa Filet Lace.
Popular These Days
A Miner Bicycle in San Sperate, Sardinia
■ Mar 17, 12:50 AM by James Martin
(For those of you who think the title is one of the numerous undiscovered errors scribbled incoherently by the tottering fool who is the writer of this blog, rest assured that it was not meant to read “A Minor Bicycle in San Sperate, Sardinia.” Or maybe it was. Read on to decide.)
One this day, the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy, we celebrate the rough cultural past of Sardinia, once a land of mines, malarial swamps and stone towers.
The picture above shows a bicycle, embedded in a wall of San Sperate, a village known for its murals, vegetables and fruits (especially peaches, but this time of year oranges).
We were being driven around the village by sculptor Pinuccio Sciola when he stopped the car and pointed to the bicycle above while I snapped a picture. “This bicycle belonged to a miner who used it to get to his job in the mines. He cycled 100 km every day each way. One day he got so tired he had to rest, so he put down the bike and fell asleep under a tree. When he awoke, he didn’t remember whether he was coming or going, so he went home and missed his day of work.”
Let’s raise a glass to difficult lives celebrated uniquely.
(More on San Sperate)
Sartiglia and Stars in Oristano, Sardinia
■ Mar 8, 10:55 AM by James Martin
This medieval carnevale game is easy. You get into an intricate costume (as does your horse), you ride in a parade through town to a starting point, then, when it’s your turn, you gallop down a street mounded with sand as fast as you can and do what you see in the picture, namely skewering a hanging star, which has a hole of about one inch in the center, using your foil.
It takes quite a bit of skill. And the horse has to cooperate, too.
Otherwise:
Carnevale in Cagliari - Felliniesque?
■ Mar 6, 01:48 PM by James Martin
If you stand in front of the train station long enough, characters appear. Cagliari’s carnevale parade this evening was colorful, interesting, and weird—everything a carnevale parade should be, doncha think?