Abbasanta

On a basalt plateau at the centre of Sardinia, Abbasanta is the kind of town travellers cross on the island’s main road without realising what stands three kilometres away: Nuraghe Losa, one of the best-preserved Bronze Age monuments on the island, with an old basalt-built town and Slow Food flavours back in the centre.

Why visit

For anyone drawn to Sardinia’s ancient stones, Abbasanta is a strategic and rewarding stop. Nuraghe Losa is a complex, trilobate nuraghe — a central keep wrapped in three curved bastions and an outer wall — and you can climb its internal stairway to the top, which few nuraghi allow. The site sits right on the island’s main artery, making it the easiest major nuraghe to reach anywhere on the island, yet it rarely feels busy. Around it lies a landscape of volcanic plateau and cork oak rich with other prehistoric remains: giants’ tombs, sacred wells and dolmens. And Abbasanta itself, built of dark basalt and slow-moving, gives visitors a taste of interior Sardinia — genuine, agricultural, and proud of a cheese tradition recognised by Slow Food.

Character and history

The town’s roots run deep: Neolithic people left the dolmen of s’Angrone on the plateau, and the Bronze Age added the sacred well of Calegastea and the giants’ tomb of sos Ozzastros. In Roman times the settlement was known as Ad Medias Acquas, a reference to its waters; the name Aba Sancta, “sacred water”, first appears in twelfth-century church records. Abbasanta grew as a market and pastoral centre of the historic Barigadu region, its houses built from the local black stone, and its parish church of Santa Caterina d’Alessandria — originally Gothic-Catalan on the site of a nuraghe — anchored communal life. The modern town lives from agriculture, livestock and small enterprise, and sits at the heart of the island, equidistant in spirit from the coasts that most visitors never leave.

What to see

The essential monument is Nuraghe Losa, built in regular basalt blocks across construction phases from roughly the fifteenth to the late twelfth century BC. Its central keep, protected by the trilobed bastion with a tower reaching about thirteen metres, is enclosed by an outer antemurale; inside, corridors, chambers and the vaulted central room survive so well that the structure is counted among the best preserved in Sardinia. The site also keeps an ethnographic museum in an early-sixteenth-century manor house, documenting rural and pastoral life from about 1500 to 1950. In town, the basalt architecture of the historic centre, the parish church and the Sant’Agostino park with its cork oaks and rural sanctuary make an unhurried hour or two.

History travellers can string together a whole day of the Bronze Age within a short drive: the polylobed nuraghe Aiga with its village remains, the precise single tower of Nuraghe Zuras, and the prehistoric burials near the Tanca Regia horse-breeding centre all lie in the surrounding countryside, and from Zuras’s terrace several monuments can be picked out at once across the plateau. This density is Abbasanta’s real advantage — you see Sardinia’s deep past not as an isolated ticketed monument but as a landscape, exactly as its builders experienced it.

How to experience

Give Nuraghe Losa a proper visit rather than a photo stop: walk the full circuit of the outer wall, then climb to the terrace for the view across the plateau, where other nuraghi are visible on the horizon. The site offers guided tours and runs events such as night openings under the moonlight — a memorable way to see a Bronze Age monument — so ask about the calendar at the ticket office or on nuraghelosa.net. Combine the nuraghe with nearby sites in the area, including the sanctuary of Santa Cristina in neighbouring Paulilatino, to see how the plateau was sacred ground for millennia. Back in town, seek out casizolu, the aged cow’s-milk cheese that is a Slow Food presidium, and the plate of pastoral cooking that goes with it. Trattorias in the centre keep country hours, so plan lunch before the mid-afternoon pause; in the evening the town empties early, which is precisely its charm for travellers tired of resort rhythm.

Practical planning

Abbasanta sits directly on the SS131, Sardinia’s north–south backbone, about half an hour from Oristano; the Abbasanta–Ghilarza rail stop on the Cagliari–Sassari line is close by, but a car makes the surrounding archaeological sites far easier. The nuraghe is signposted three kilometres from town with its own parking, ticket office, bar and shop. Hours extend longest in summer, and the site can be closed or limited at midday and in winter — confirm current times before setting out. Spring, when the plateau is green and flowers cover the basalt, is the most beautiful season; temperatures inland run hotter than on the coast in July and August.

Nearby places

Along the SS131, Paulilatino guards the remarkable well-temple of Santa Cristina, Bonorva opens the way to the basalt uplands of Goceano, and to the north-west Torralba keeps the nuraghe santu Antine and the prehistoric park of the Valle dei Nuraghi.