ON D.H. LAWRENCE’S SARDINIAN EPIC TRAIN TRAVEL

get aboard the green train for a timeless ride across Barbagia

LAWRENCE’S WANDERLUST

“Comes over one an absolute necessity to move”

That’s what D.H. Lawrence wrote at the beginning of his book Sea and Sardinia (1924). And if you have ever felt wanderlust flowing through your veins, you know what he’s talking about.

In this article, you are going to explore the very itinerary that Lawrence and his wife covered in 1921. In particular, you are going to learn about timetables, what to pack, prices and a preview of all the stations on this extraordinary adventure.

LAWRENCE’S EXPERIENCE vs YOUR EXPERIENCE

Lawrence was ecstatic when he first arrived in Sardinia. However, his travel experience wasn’t much fun for two reasons. For once he travelled in January with bad weather. And secondly, he did not have any guide. Did he like it? Oh yes, he very much enjoyed Sardinia – and complaining about everything un-English too.

Does this mean that your train travel on the trail of Lawrence will be boring? Were Lawrence and his wife correct in asserting that there’s nothing to do?

Well, let’s try and find out

ON D.H. LAWRENCE’S SARDINIAN EPIC TRAIN TRAVEL

a Day
to remember

Explore Sardinia and get in contact with its most remote and uncaptured life

Heightened
awareness of time

A unique travel adventure touching places were time has moved at a different pace

THE GREEN TRAIN – YOUR MEANS OF EXPLORATION

Lawrence and his wife arrived with the ferry to Cagliari and from there they took the train to Sorgono – the end of the line – before continuing by bus to Nuoro and then Olbia. Can you take the same train that Lawrence used in his travel? Yes and no.

The original coal trains used to cover the route are kept in Cagliari as historic timepieces. However, the special narrow gauge railway is still open every summer and you can ride a 1958 train through the Sardinian countryside.

And because this train touches stations immersed in the green vegetation of cork-tree and holm oak forests, Italians call it Trenino Verde, Little Green Train.

WHERE DOES THE ITINERARY START?

Let’s start where Lawrence started – in Cagliari.

“And suddenly there is Cagliari: a naked town rising steep, steep, golden-looking, piled naked to the sky from the plain at the head of the formless hollow bay.

It is strange and rather wonderful, not a bit like Italy.

The city piles up lofty and almost miniature, and makes me think of Jerusalem: without trees, without cover, rising rather bare and proud, remote as if back in history, like a town in a monkish, illuminated missal.”

At the central train station of Cagliari, you may find a Koppel coal locomotive. That, however, will take you to nowhere as the narrow gauge railway only starts from the Monserrato train station. Let’s, therefore, cross the street to the bus terminal and buy a ticket there to Mandas, where you can board the green train.

Your bus leaves at 17:09 to arrive 73 minutes later in Mandas. Click here to check your departure time

Alternatively, you can take a bus from Piazza Repubblica in Cagliari at 06:55 (arrival in Mandas at 09:37) or 16:00 (arrival 17:42).

SHOULD I REACH MANDAS BY CAR?

If you are thinking about renting a car, that’s a great option too. From the bus or train station in Cagliari, take any bus or train to Cagliari airport and collect your rent-a-car.

You can find a link to all rent-a-car companies at Cagliari Airport at this link. And you can compare prices at this link.

By renting a car you’ll have the opportunity of exploring Barumini on the evening before your train trip.

WHAT TIME DOES THE GREEN TRAIN LEAVE FROM MANDAS?

The trains organised by the Regional Authority for Transportation – ARST – usually travel on Sundays. You can check their schedule here.

However, there are charter trains called Barbagia Express that can be booked in advance together with an English speaking guide. These trains leave at 09:30-09:45 and cover the whole route before coming back at about 19:00

Frieda and DH Lawrence, 1923 - U. of Nottingham

SHOULD I TAKE THE ONE-DAY TRIP OR BOOK MY RETURN ON A DIFFERENT DAY?

That’s up to you and mainly depends on how much time you have.

By booking your return on a different date you can choose a small village and linger for a day or two in the Sardinian countryside relaxation.

On the other hand, the one-day trip offers you a travel back in time with several stops and excursions. For instance, you can choose to go for a trek into a lush forest or opt for an instructive museum visit.

It’s true, you won’t see everything worth seeing, but that’s rarely the case in any tour. However, you can be assured to experience the best of it. Lawrence himself might have wished for a tour like this.

HOW MUCH DOES THE ONE-DAY TOUR COST?

A single ticket from Mandas to Sorgono and return with the Barbagia Express costs between Euro 55,00 and 80,00 per person including a full Sardinian meal.

Please write in advance if you have any food allergies.

If you need an English speaking guide, please ask when reserving your ticket. An extra cost might be associated with this service.

HOW DO I PURCHASE MY TICKET?

You can purchase your ticket by contacting Barbagia Express at barbagiaexpress@gmail.com | Monia +39-348-398-9372 | Green Train Incantos Ticket Agency +39-070-351-1057 | BarbagiaExpress.it

WHAT SHOULD I PACK?

There’ll be stops along the route so that you can enjoy an Italian espresso or a refreshing drink. However, you should pack some water and a light snack.

Or do like Lawrence and his wife, who packed a small bag – which they call “kitchenino” – with:

“Methylated spirit, a small aluminium saucepan, a spirit-lamp, two spoons, two forks, a knife, two aluminium plates, salt, sugar, tea – the thermos flask [filled with hot tea], the various sandwiches [bacon, and scrambled eggs], four apples, and a little tin of butter.”

Now, there’s no need to pack a portable kitchen as, unlike during Lawrence’s travel, lunch is provided.

Travel light but bring with you your phone or camera to shoot some nice photography – remember to tag KeepExploringSardinia.

Optional – bring your paper or digital copy of Lawrence’s Sea and Sardinia with you.

WHAT DOES THE ITINERARY LOOK LIKE?

Imagine leaving from cultivated fields and travelling slowly uphill into a natural wilderness. There you’ll adventure into spectacular landscapes that cannot be reached by any other transportation means. As Lawrence writes:

“Soon we begin to climb to the hills. And soon the cultivation begins to be intermittent.

Extraordinary how the heathy, moor-like hills come near the sea: extraordinary how scrubby and uninhabited the great spaces of Sardinia are. It is wild, with heath and arbutus scrub and a sort of myrtle, breast-high.

Sometimes one sees a few head of cattle. And then again come the greyish arable-patches, where the corn is grown. It is like Cornwall, like the Land’s End region. Here and there, in the distance, are peasants working on the lonely landscape. Sometimes it is one man alone in the distance, showing so vividly in his black-and-white costume, small and far-off like a solitary magpie, and curiously distinct.

All the strange magic of Sardinia is in this sight.”

IS THERE A GENERAL FEELING TO THIS JOURNEY THAT I CAN RELATE TO?

You’ll visit green valleys crossed by rivers, lakes made for fishing, cork-tree forests inhabited by mouflons and wild pigs.

You’ll cross end-of-the-XIX-century bridges and traverse narrow tunnels dug into the raw stone to arrive at small villages where time stood still.

As Lawrence puts it when comparing it to Italy:

“Sardinia is another thing. Much wider, much more ordinary, not up-and-down at all, but running away into the distance. Unremarkable ridges of moor-like hills running away, perhaps to a bunch of dramatic peaks on the southwest.

This gives a sense of space, which is so lacking in Italy. Lovely space about one, and traveling distances – nothing finished, nothing final. It is like liberty itself.”

So yes, there is a feeling you can relate to, and that is of discovery and freedom.

Curious to know more? Here below you can have a look at the 12 stations you’ll be travelling to.

THE RAILWAY MANDAS-SORGONO

96 kilometres on the trail of D.H. Lawrence and his Sea and Sardinia journey account.

“I was surprised how well the small engine took the continuous steep slopes, how bravely it emerged on the skyline.

It is a queer railway. I would like to know who made it. It pelts up hill and down dale and round sudden bends in the most unconcerned fashion, not as proper big railways do, grunting inside deep cuttings and stinking their way through tunnels, but running up the hill like a panting, small dog, and having a look around, and starting off in another direction, whisking us behind unconcernedly.”

THE LANDSCAPE

The coal train does not run anymore to mitigate summer fires. But what about Sardinia? Can you still find some “uncaptured” aspects like Lawrence did in 1921?

This is how the English author describes his trip right before arriving in Mandas:

“So we ran through the gold of the afternoon, across a wide, almost Celtic landscape of hills, our little train winding and puffing away very nimbly. Only the heath and scrub, breast-high, man-high, is too big and brigand-like for a Celtic land. The horns of black, wild-looking cattle show sometimes.”

THE STATIONS

Small stations dot the land, some are right in the heart of villages, some others are conveniently placed near mining sites.

“After a long pull, we come to a station after a stretch of loneliness. Each time, it looks as if there were nothing beyond – no more habitations. And each time we come to a station.”

So let’s explore the stations Lawrence touched for they are the same ones you’ll be stopping by too.

@barbagia_express publishes Mario Dessi's photo of the coal train running from Mandas to Sorgono

MANDAS

“Mandas is a junction where these little trains sit and have a long happy chat after their arduous scramble over the downs”.

“The village itself is just a long, winding, darkish street, in shadow, of houses and shops and a smithy.

It might almost be Cornwall: not quite. Something, I don’t know what, suggests the stark burning glare of summer. And then, of course, there is none of the cosiness which climbing roses and lilac trees and cottage shops and haystacks would give to an English scene. This is harder, barer, starker, more dreary.”

That’s how Lawrence sums up Mandas, where he enjoys a meal, a night’s sleep and a reinvigorating morning walk before continuing on his journey.

If you are coming to Mandas by train or bus from Cagliari, enjoy your evening in town by tasting the food specialities of the local cuisine.

UNESCO SITE – BARUMINI

On the other hand, if you are coming to Mandas by car, you might spend a nice evening at the Unesco World Heritage site of Su Nuraxi, in Barumini. There you can visit the largest Nuragic fortress yet excavated in Sardinia. Or the museum Casa Zapata in the 16th-century palace.

MINI-PONIES NATURAL HABITAT

Close to Mandas, you can visit the Sardinia in Miniature fun park or the Giara of Gesturi, the renowned tableau where the mini-ponies of Giara live.

Museum Casa Zapata, Piazza Giovanni XXIII, 09021 Barumini CA | +39-070-936-8476 | prenotazioni@fondazionebarumini.it | Web

Su Nuraxi, Archaeological Zone, Viale Su Nuraxi, 09021 Barumini CA | +39-070-936-8128 | prenotazioni@fondazionebarumini.it | Web

@monaatri takes a snap at Casa Zapata Museum, which encapsulates an ancient Nuragic fortress inside its structure

SERRI

“It was wonderful to be running in the bright morning towards the heart of Sardinia, in the little train that seemed so familiar.”

Serri is the first stop on your trip to the heart of Sardinia. The small village lies on the border of its homonymous tableau and just 4 km from the largest archaeological area of Southern Sardinia – Santa Vittoria.

You can tour the archaeological park which extends over 22 hectares and get inspired by its two temples and its sacred well built with large basalt stones.

Archaeological Park of Santa Vittoria, 08030 Serri CA | +39-346-066-9068 | acropolinuragica@tiscali.it | Web | Facebook

Nicola Castangia photographs the sacred well at Santa Vittoria di Serri

ISILI

In Isili you can visit the Asusa park with a completely restored Koppel steam locomotive as part of an exhibit on narrow gauge railways in Sardinia.

Additionally, in the ancient Escolopian convent downtown you can tour the Museum for the Arts of Copper-working and Carpet-weaving and get a closer look at two of the most ancient skills of the inhabitants of Isili.

In particular, in the Marate museum, you can find all the original instruments used to produce copper artefacts, including a cart that local artisans used to sell their goods.

The real sightseeing attraction of Isili is, however, the Nuragic fortress of Is Paras, just out of town and clearly visible from the railway.

At the 15th century B.C. fortress of Is Paras you can find the tallest room of that time in all of the Mediterranean. At 12 metres of height, it was second only to the tomb of Agamemnon in Greece.

Marate Museum, Piazza San Giuseppe Calasanzio 8, 08033 Isili CA | +39-0782-802-641 | +39-380-455-3856 | sa.frontissa@tiscali.it | Web | open Tuesday trough Sunday 10.00-13.00 and 16.30-19.30

@barbagia_express publishes an amazing picture by Manfred Kopka at Isili

SARCIDANO

Before arriving at the 1889 train station of Sarcidano – once an important crossroad for the transportation of minerals – you travel the bucolic Rio Mannu valley.

Try to identify the small church built on top of a rock butte on the lake Is Barrocus. The latter is a renowned location for fishing and was used as the training ground by the National Team for the Paralympics in the summer of 2016.

@octavariumetallus photographs the islet and the San Sebastian church on the Is Barrocus lake

NURALLAO

“The little engine whisks up and up, around its loopy curves as if it were going to bite its own tail: we being the tail: then suddenly dives over the skyline out of sight. And the landscape changes. The famous woods begin to appear.”

Nurallao and its restored train station is the right place for a coffee break before getting to those woods.

In fact, the first station after Nurallao is Cignoni, from which you can easily reach the natural park of Funtana Is Arinus. There you can explore the imposing forest of cork-trees and holm oaks before reaching the 20-metres-high waterfalls of Su Craddaxioleddu.

Here you’ll find yourself immersed in the lush vegetation that guards a precious resource – black truffles.

@vinciscristian photographs the waterfalls of Su Craddaxioleddu in the natural park of Funtana Is Arinus

LACONI

Laconi is the perfect spot where to spend a whole day.

At the centre of the small village, you can find the house-museum of Saint Ignacius of Laconi, the only Sardinian Saint.

Not far from it, you can admire the large Aymerich Palace, the summer residence of the powerful Spanish family who came to Sardinia at the beginning of 1300.

With the rise of the Spanish influence in Sardinia, members of the Aymerich family covered important roles of ambassadors, city counsellors for Cagliari, and were in tight contact with the Kings of Spain.

A carefully planned series of matrimonies allowed this family to keep their wealth over the centuries. In fact, they were among the few who in the 19th century could still commission palaces and works of art.

That’s the case for the Aymerich Palace of Laconi. The family used to spend their summers away from the torrid Cagliari in a castle in Laconi until the early 1800s. A few years later they commissioned the best Sardinian architect of that time, Gaetano Cima, a palace – which was built in 1846.

The huge 22-hectares park around their old XI century castle was also remodelled by Cima and transformed into the only Italian-style garden in Sardinia.

Nowadays you can visit the park and get impressed by the numerous waterfalls and rare plants. Among holm oaks, mulberries, wild strawberries, cherry trees, you can touch the trunk of an imposing cedar tree from Libanon.

If you are a nature lover you may want to photograph the Himalayan cedar tree, a collectia cruciata – with leaves in the shape of war aircraft – a magnolia grandiflora, a thuia orientalis and a Taxus baccata, also know as the tree of death.

You can also explore the Aymerich Palace – which hosts the Menhir Museum – and get inspired by the powerful primal poetry disclosed by a collection of over 40 monoliths tracing the evolution of sculpture in prehistoric Sardinia.

Menhir Museum, Palazzo Aymerich, Piazza Marconi 10, 08034 Laconi OR | +39-0782-693-238 | +39-342-350-7760 | info@menhirmuseum.it | Web | open Tuesday through Sunday 10.00-13.00 and 15.30-19.00

@eleonor_sanna at the ancient Aymerich Castle in Laconi

ORTUABIS

“There is a stream: actually a long tress of a waterfall pouring into a little gorge, and a stream-bed that opens a little, and shows a marvellous cluster of naked poplars away below.

If I were a painter I would paint them: for they seem to have living, sentient flesh.”

In Ortuabis you’ll be at the highest point along the railway line – 800 metres above the sea level.

It was at this station that minerals coming from the mine of Fontana Raminosa were loaded onto the train and brought to Cagliari.

Nowadays you can stop at Ortuabis and go visit the 20 minutes-away extraction point of Fontana Raminosa. In fact, the mine is part of the National Geomineral Historic and Environmental Park and offers a unique immersion into the mining history of Sardinia.

Miniera di Fontana Raminosa, Strada Provinciale 8, 08030 Gadoni NU | +39-0781-491-300 | +39-348-154-9556 | Web

@saeprus_outdoor at the Ortuabis mine

MEANA SARDO

Stop here if you’d like to visit a typical Sardinian village of shepherds and farmers.

You can enjoy a tasty meal with excellent local wines. And stroll leisurely in among ancient houses built with shale stones and showing interesting Aragonese decorations dating to the 17th and 18th century.

You can also tour the Nuragic fortress Nolza of the 14th century B.C. and learn how the 2 hectares large village was organised around the central tower.

After Meana the landscape changes again.

“Yes, the steep valley sides become almost gorges, and there are trees. Not forests such as I had imagined, but scattered, grey, smallish oaks, and some lithe chestnuts.

Chestnuts with their long whips, and oaks with their stubby boughs, scattered on steep hillsides where rocks crop out.The train perilously winding round, halfway up. Then suddenly bolting over a bridge and into a completely unexpected station.” Belvì.

@michelepattarozzi captures the summer landscape in Meana Sardo

BELVI

An ancient legend tells that Ospitone – the proud leader of the Sardinian resistance against the invaders during medieval times – resided in Belvì.

And the town was one of the few free from the rule of a feudal lord. Instead, one of the wisest members of the village’s families was designated as major. A tradition that lasted until the annexation to the Kingdom of Piedmont.

Nowadays in Belvì you can tour the ancient cobblestone streets and breathe the nice mountain air with its aroma of chestnut, cherry, and hazel trees.

You can also explore the small but rich Natural Science Museum with over 530 different Sardinian minerals, 160 fossils and 383 bird species. Don’t miss the section with diurnal and nocturnal birds of prey.

Museo di Scienze Naturali, Via San Sebastiano 56, 08030 Belvì | +39-0784-629-263 | +39-339-753-1025 | opena daily on reservation 09.30-13.00 and 15.30-19.00

@kanonim shows us the rail tracks leading to Belvì

TONARA

“We are struggling now among the Gennargentu spurs. The train, like the plough, balances on the steep, steep sides of the hill-spurs, and winds around and around.

Above and below the steep slopes are all bosky. These are the woods of Gennargentu.”

Up on a mountain among these woods not far from Gennargentu lies Tonara, while on another mountaintop you find Desulo. The train station has been built halfway between the two, on what seems to be the exact median distance between the two villages.

Tonara is the capital village of nougat in Sardinia. In fact, the town produces several types of excellent honey. The latter, kneaded with eggs, water and local almonds, produces an exquisite nougat that melts in your mouth thereby releasing delicate notes of thistle and daffodil.

You will not find a better nougat – and honey – than here in Tonara.

DESULO

Desulo is the starting point of many trekking paths leading to Punta Lamarmora, the highest mountain in Sardinia with its 1834 metres above the sea level.

In town, you can visit the house-museum of the poet Montanaru (Antioco Casula, 1878-1957) and get inspired by its personal library and collection of letters, the traditional tapestry of Desulo, and the local dress.

The latter was so important that National Geographic made a documentary out of it.

House-Museum Montanaru, Via Montanaru | +39-0784-619-624 | +39-0784-619-415 | open on reservation | free-offer entry | Web

SORGONO

“Pretty Sorgono! As we went down the brief muddy lane between hedges, to the village high-road, we seemed almost to have come to some little town in the English west-country, or in Hardy’s country.

There were glades of stripling oaks, and big slopes with oak trees, and on the right a saw-mill buzzing, and on the left the town, white and close, nestling round a baroque church-tower.”

Sorgono is the end of the line – “ah you terminus and ganglion of the inland roads”.

THE ANCIENT TOWN CENTER

This village has always been the capital town of Mandrolisai – this region at the geographical centre of Sardinia. That’s why many of the ancient houses of the old quarter are built in shale stone and show Aragonese decorations of the XIV and XV century.

Here you can visit the Museum of the Wood Inlay – Museo dei Segni sul Legno in Italian – and get inspired by the skilful designs of Sardinian artists.

You can also explore the House-Museum Luigi Serra and immerse yourself in the life of Sardinia in the 1850s.

SARDINIAN STONEHENGE

8 km from Sorgono you can reach the monoliths of the archaeological park of Biru ‘e Concas, the Sardinian Stonehenge.

In fact, you can tour the park’s more than 200 menhirs – the highest concentration in the whole Mediterranean – dating between 3.200 and 1.800 B.C. Stroll among the cork-trees and try to identify the shape of the animals or men represented by the ancient stones.

SANCTUARY OF SAN MAURO

900 metres from there, you can stop by one of the largest country churches in Sardinia, the sanctuary of San Mauro. The rose-window of San Mauro has been carved by a unique block of trachyte and at 4,5 metres of diagonal, it’s Sardinia’s biggest.

NURAGIC REMAINS

Next to the church stop by the collective tomb of Funtana Morta dating approximately 3.000 B.C. This was the burial place for the inhabitants of the Nuragic village built around the fortress of Talei.

Explore the latter to learn about the original design of Nuraghe that evolved over time to resemble a true fortress with towers and defensive walls such as that of Santu Antine or Barumini.

EXCELLENT WINE

Before leaving taste the Mandrolisai wine made by mixing the Cannonau, Monica and Bovale wine grape varieties that grow over the hills around town.

Museo dei Segni sul Legno, Corso Vittorio Emanuele 72, 08038 Sorgono | +39-0784-622-520 | comunesorgono@comune.sorgono.nu.it | Web | open Tuesday and Thursday 09.00-13.00 and 15.00-19.00

Casa-Museo Luigi Serra, Corso IV Novembre 148, 08038 Sorgono | +39-347-954-3396

Archeological Park Biru ‘e Concas, Strada Statale 388 del Tirso e del Mandrolisai, 08038 Sorgono | +39-0784-622-538

@giorgiomuceli brings us right at the center of Sorgono and its lovely church

A TRAVEL OF CONSCIOUSNESS

“It is all conscious. Wherever one is in Italy, either one is conscious of the present, or of the medieval influences, or of the far, mysterious gods of the early Mediterranean.

Wherever one is, the place has its conscious genus. Man has lived there and brought forth his consciousness there and in some way brought that place to consciousness, given it expression, and, really, finished it.

[…] The land has been humanised, through and through: and we in our tissued consciousness bear the results of this humanisation. So that for us to go to Italy and to penetrate into Italy is like a most fascinating act of self-discovery – back, back down the old ways of time.

Strange and wonderful chords awake in us, and vibrate again after many hundred years of complete forgetfulness.

SOUL THRILLING

But his travel in Sardinia makes Lawrence realise something else too, something as equally meaningful.

This Sunday morning, seeing the frost among the tangled, still savage bushes of Sardinia, my soul thrilled again.

This was not all known. This was not all worked out. Life was not only a process of rediscovering backwards. It is that, also: and it is that intensely.

[…] But this morning […] I realise that, apart from the great rediscovery backwards, which one must make before one can be whole at all, there is a move forwards.

There are unknown, unworked lands where the salt has not lost its savour.”

@giorgiomuceli snaps this shot the the archaeological park of Biru 'e Concas, Sardinia's Stonehenge

YOUR TURN

Are you ready to follow Lawrence on your personal travel through Sardinia? To experience those “strange and wonderful chords” awakening in you “and vibrating after many hundred years of complete forgetfulness”?

Are you ready to catch a train and come back from a journey as a changed man?

For that is really an epic kind of travel.

@love_ogliastra captures a scene of the old coal train riding into the landscape of Ogliastra

Let’s work together

Wanna join our crazy team?