The territory of Milis is a handful of kilometres long and narrow, laid out along the Riu Mannu, and it is full of spring water that gathers into dozens of small streams. It was the Camaldolese monks of Bonarcado who turned that water to account: their holdings here were confirmed in 1211 by Costantino III of Arborea, and they planted an orchard in the place still called Ortus de is Paras, the friars' orchard. Ever since, Milis has been known all over the island for its citrus, and when it was granted arms in 2000, orange trees were put inside them. Palazzo Boyl, which the marquises used as a summer residence, saw Carlo Felice and Carlo Alberto of Savoy, general La Marmora, Gabriele d'Annunzio and, in 1838, for a few days, Honoré de Balzac.
The orange groves also hid a war. During the Second World War there was a military airfield at Milis, used as a base by the Mediterranean Luftwaffe too, and they called it the invisible airport because the trees covered it from sight. What gave it away was the shooting down of an enemy aircraft: the Allies located it and bombed it on 3 July 1943, killing civilians as well. The dead were buried in the village cemetery, in a separate plot, by the church of San Paolo: soldiers and civilians lie there together, Italians and Germans. At the southern entrance to the village stands villa Pernis, built at the end of the nineteenth century to breed horses for the royal army, with its L-shaped building half a kilometre long and four hectares of citrus grove around it; used as a barracks during the war and then abandoned, it has been almost entirely restored and part of it has become a hotel.
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📅 Every year, on 20 January
On 20 January Milis celebrates its patron Saint Sebastian, to whom the town's church is dedicated; on the Sunday after 19 March the old chickpea festival is held.
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.
