Su Nuraxi di Barumini

UNESCO World Heritage Site (Su Nuraxi Di Barumini, Inscribed 1997), A Bronze Age Nuraghe Complex Of A Central Keep, Four Towered Bastion And Surrounding Village · Barumini, Sardinia

Sardinia has something like seven thousand stone towers scattered across it, built between roughly 1800 and 700 BC by a culture that left no writing, and this is the one that was excavated properly and inscribed by UNESCO. A central tower of dry-stone basalt blocks, originally three storeys and still standing to a serious height, sits inside a four-towered bastion, and packed around that is a village of round huts whose walls come up to about waist height in a dense honeycomb. You go in on a guided tour only, which is the right arrangement because almost nothing here is labelled and the interior of the keep is a corbelled chamber you would otherwise walk past. Nobody knows what the towers were for: fortresses, temples, grain stores and status symbols have all been argued, and the guides will tell you so rather than pick one. It sits in flat open country in the middle of the island, an hour from Cagliari, with no shade at all.

Viale Su Nuraxi, Barumini, Sardinia, 09021, Italy

NO OPENING TIME HERE WAS CHECKED. The structure: ENTRY IS BY GUIDED TOUR ONLY, running at fixed departure times through the day, more frequently in summer and noticeably less often in winter, with the last departure well before closing. The site opens daily with seasonal hours and closes on a small number of public holidays. The Casa Zapata and the village museum keep their own hours on the combined ticket. Confirm the tour timetable and the language before driving out, because there is no self-guided alternative.

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