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History & Fun Facts

The Secrets
of Perdasdefogu

4 curiosities and stories

01

The Melis family and the Guinness World Record

In 2012, the Guinness World Records certified that the nine Melis siblings from Perdasdefogu held the record for the family with the greatest combined age in the world: 819 years shared between Consolata, Claudina, Maria, Antonio, Concetta, Adolfo, Vitalio, Mafalda and Efisio. The youngest was over 78 years old. The news travelled around the globe, drawing renewed attention to the exceptional longevity of Ogliastra and the Barbagia, where the number of centenarians per capita is among the highest on Earth. The Melis family attributed their long lives to working the fields, simple food, Cannonau wine and — above all — deep family and community bonds.

02

The Ogliastra Blue Zone: the secret of a long life

Perdasdefogu falls within Sardinia's so-called Blue Zone, identified by demographer Michel Poulain and journalist Dan Buettner as one of five regions in the world with the highest concentration of centenarians. The characteristics shared by these zones — a plant-based diet, daily physical activity, strong social cohesion, a sense of belonging and purpose — are found here in an authentic, unforced way. The elderly residents of Perdasdefogu continue to tend their kitchen gardens, walk the paths, and gather in the village square. Longevity is not a goal here but a natural consequence of a way of life that has remained intact for centuries.

03

The Salto di Quirra Joint Military Range

The PISQ — Poligono Interforze Sperimentale e di Addestramento del Salto di Quirra — is the largest military testing area in Europe for missile and ballistic experimentation. It sits on the heights around Perdasdefogu and has left a deep mark on the village's recent history. For decades it provided jobs for the local community, but it also raised serious questions about the health of the population and livestock, with reports of abnormally high rates of cancer and birth defects — the so-called 'Quirra syndrome'. The range is still active, an imposing presence in a territory that deserves an altogether different kind of fame.

04

Forests, gorges and silence: the hidden landscape

Beyond the record and the military range, Perdasdefogu is set within a mountain landscape of great wild beauty. The holm-oak and downy-oak forests surrounding the village cloak the plateaus and hillsides with an almost fairy-tale density. The limestone gorges that open in the surrounding area — narrow and deep, threaded by small streams — are habitat for rare birds of prey and cliff-dwelling plants. The trails winding through these mountains are poorly marked and even less visited, making them precious for anyone seeking truly unspoilt nature, far from the coastal tourist circuits of Ogliastra.

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