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History & Fun Facts

The Secrets
of Osini

4 curiosities and stories

01

Osini Vecchio: the ghost village

The 1951 flood left the inhabitants of Osini with no choice: the ancient settlement, built over the centuries at the foot of the limestone Tacchi, had become dangerous and impossible to inhabit safely. The families were resettled in the new Osini, built higher up with the help of the State. The old village was left abandoned, with houses open to the wind, fallen roof tiles, and alleyways overtaken by vegetation. Today Osini Vecchio is a place of great melancholic charm: the limestone walls still standing, the creaking doorways, the absolute silence broken only by birds. It is freely open to visit, and every corner tells the story of a community that had to begin again from nothing.

02

The Scala di San Giorgio: the gateway through the Tacchi

The Scala di San Giorgio is a natural passage carved in limestone, a kind of geological corridor that opens between two of the Tacchi d'Ogliastra — the limestone mesa formations that dominate the island's interior landscape. It is a natural structure of rare spectacularity: vertical walls tens of metres high close in on a narrow pass traversed by a path paved partly by nature itself and partly by human hands over the centuries. The scala was a vital transit route for shepherds and travellers who needed to move between the flanks of the Tacchi. Today it is one of the most evocative treks in inland Ogliastra, accessible on foot from Osini in roughly an hour's walk.

03

The Tacchi d'Ogliastra: geology as landscape

The Tacchi d'Ogliastra are flat-topped limestone formations — remnants of an ancient seabed that was uplifted and then eroded over millions of years — which give the inland Ogliastran landscape its uniquely distinctive character. The word tacco comes from Sardinian and refers precisely to this raised platform shape, similar to the heel of a shoe. Around Osini the Tacchi are particularly imposing: sheer cliff faces drop onto wooded valleys with a verticality that takes the breath away. The flat summits, covered in juniper and wind-swept grass, offer extraordinary panoramic views across the entire Ogliastran district. Geologists and nature enthusiasts come from all over Europe to study and admire them.

04

Small, remote, authentic: life in Osini

With fewer than 800 inhabitants and a secluded position among the mountains of Ogliastra, Osini has remained one of the most authentic and least mass-tourism-affected villages of inland Sardinia. Life flows at the rhythms of the countryside and livestock farming; women still weave traditional rugs with ancient geometric motifs; the elderly sit outside cafés during the warm afternoon hours. There are no large hotels or sophisticated restaurants, but there is a genuine hospitality that surprises those who arrive from elsewhere. Osini teaches that not all of Sardinia's extraordinary places are found on the coast: sometimes you simply need to climb among the Tacchi to find something irreplaceable.

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