The name of Talana might come from an Etruscan goddess. So holds the linguist Massimo Pittau, who calls it of probable Nuragic origin — significant, to his mind, the triple repetition of the a — and notes that Thalna, or Thalana, was the Etruscan divinity of youth: either there were Etruscans in these parts, or the Nuragic people of the area had dealings with them steady enough to leave a trace in the village's name. The language of today, too, stands in between: the Sardinian of Talana is Ogliastra Campidanese, but with Barbagia and Logudoro influences enough to make it a limba de mesania, a middle tongue. The village stands on a ridge with a view of the sea, and its territory drops from Punta Genziana, which they call Orrunori here, to the fifty metres of the plain.
The rock sets it apart from its neighbours: Talana is granite, and the comuni it borders to the north are limestone, so that its territory can be told from that of Urzulei or Orgosolo at a glance. From the sixteenth century onwards people also searched inside it: north and south of the village the signs of mining prospection remain. The nuraghe Bau 'e Tanca is one of the highest-lying in Sardinia, above eleven hundred metres, on top of a granite plateau. The great feast is that of Saint Ephysius, the first Sunday of May, in the country church on the boundary with Lotzorai: the statue arrives there on the Saturday and comes back to the village on the Monday, and many families spend the three days in the countryside in the lòjas, the patches of ground under the olive trees cleared of brush so that one can camp.
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📅 Every year, on 29 July and the first Sunday of September
On 29 July Talana, a municipality of 1,069 inhabitants in the province of Nuoro, celebrates its patroness Saint Martha (santa Marta).
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
