Sadali

Sadali stands on the edge of a limestone plateau, one of those that in Sardinia they call tacchi: almost vertical walls some fifty metres high, and above them a bare surface where the rain does not stay but disappears into the fractures of the rock. Below, the limestone rests on impermeable rocks, and the water that went down comes back out all together at the base, in springs that never dry. That is why in the middle of the village there is a waterfall: the fall of San Valentino comes down inside the built-up area, beside the church that gives it its name, and it is the only one on the island to do so. A few steps away is a water mill, the last one left in these parts: it ground grain for more than two centuries and today can be visited.

The rest of the water went underground, and dug. The cave of Is Janas runs for three hundred metres through six rooms, where stalactites and stalagmites have joined into columns and the flowstone has the colour of ochre, with draperies that look like marble. The name means the cave of the fairies, and the legend tells that three janas lived there and were turned to stone inside it. From the cave starts the path of the Fairies, which in half an hour leads to the sinkhole of Su Stampu 'e Su Turnu. On the plateau, where today the vegetation is thin, pieces of the old forest that covered the whole tacco still hold out: holm oaks, cork oaks, downy oaks and a few rare yews, hollies and maples. Sadali is one of the most beautiful villages of Italy.