Olbia Culture

Olbia's culture is Gallurese, and Gallura is not quite like the rest of Sardinia.

Gallurese

The local speech, gadduresu, is not a variety of Sardinian but is closer to Corsican, the result of centuries of movement across the strait. Place names, surnames and food all carry that northern connection, and Gallurese identity is held distinctly from the rest of the island.

Cork and granite

The two traditional industries are still visible everywhere: quarried granite in the buildings and the export trade, and cork oak forests inland that supply most of Italy's cork. Both are slow, land-based trades in a province now dominated by a three-month tourist season.

The Costa Smeralda as a cultural object

The coast north of here was designed. From 1962 a consortium imposed a house style — curved rooflines, rough render, no high building, no billboards, colours drawn from the maquis — and enforced it. Opinions locally are divided between gratitude for the money and irritation at a coastline effectively privatised by price.

The smallest kingdom

Tavolara carries one of the more engaging stories in Sardinia. In the nineteenth century the Bertoleoni family, effectively the island's only inhabitants, were said to have been recognised as its rulers by Carlo Alberto of Savoy, and their descendants have styled themselves its royal family ever since. The claim has no legal standing and the family are entirely straightforward about the fact; the tombs are still on the island, and the story is told with enjoyment rather than with any pretence.

The table

Zuppa gallurese, a baked dish of bread, broth and cheese that is not really a soup; mussels and clams from the gulf, which is a significant producer; suckling pig inland; and Vermentino di Gallura, the only DOCG wine on the island.