Its roots are very ancient and always ‘alive’, preserved within the urban fabric of the town that gives its name to the largest Sardinian island. It was originally the ancient city of Sulky, perhaps the island’s first town, and was first Phoenician-Punic and then an important Roman municipium. Today, Sant’Antioco is a renowned tourist destination that captivates with its sea and its nature, history, culture, traditions and good food, especially top quality fish and Carignano wine. Traces of the most remote past can be seen in the Barreca Archaeological Museum, next to which there is a tophet of Phoenician origin, an open-air sanctuary where children’s ashes were placed in special urns. There is a Punic necropolis nearby. The present-day town developed around the beautiful Basilica of Sant’Antioco, named after St. Antiochus, who was first exiled and condemned to working in the mines and then martyred during Roman times, becoming an object of increasingly intense veneration over the centuries, so much so that he became the patron saint of Sardinia. The catacombs under the basilica, where the saint was buried, are a pilgrimage destination, while the church is the heart of the oldest Sardinian religious festival. Centuries-old rituals, unchanged over time, are re-enacted here and there is an air of pure solemnity and shared devotion.
BORUTTA
It stretches along a valley on the slopes of Mount Pelao, amid nuraghi and domus de Janas, with a cave next to it, the Grotta Ulari, inhabited by man since the Late Neolithic period, which gave its name to the town. In Borutta, there are thousand-year-old traces of its history and its long religious tradition, dating back to the 12th century, with the building of what was then the Cathedral ...
