Saints Cosimo & Damiano, Sardinia and its lost spirit

 As summer nears the end, people all over Sardinia seem to cling onto the last heat with all their energies. In Saint Cosimo's pint-sized sanctuary the evening is already cold(ish) and gives the impression autumn has come.

Close to Mamoiada, in Nuoro's province, around Saints Cosimo & Damiano church lies a tiny village where people start celebrating the two Christian figures in July till the 27th of September, last day of the festival.

The sanctuary lies at around 700 mt of altitude, what makes it the greatest hit during the summer, when temperatures in Sardinian plains can easily reach 40-45°.

As soon as I arrived, I was welcomed by a mandatory glass of wine and unmissable homemade cakes, mandatory too. At lunchtime I was already full, and almost drunk.

Sardinian clichés were all over the place: spitroasting piglets, wine and cakes everywhere, parish acting as the host, music, dances, people out of their front doors chatting and playing on the street, and the ever-present nougat-seller.

The ancestral village-like atmosphere that is getting lost a bit everywhere (Sardinia included) is found now only in these festivals usually carried out under the pretext of religious celebrations but showing the need to connect and socialise like in the past.

I missed that, I hardly remembered it actually, but it's always good to revise such lost routines.