The village of the literary festival and fiore sardo cheese
In the heart of the Barbagia di Ollolai, at about 800 metres, Gavoi is a stone village of granite houses with wooden balconies and flower pots, lanes and small squares, which has become known throughout Italy for L'Isola delle Storie, a literary festival founded in 2004 that every July brings writers, journalists and readers from all over the world to the squares and courtyards of the village, an unexpected meeting between the literature of the world and an ancient shepherd community.
Gavoi is also the home of fiore sardo, one of the oldest cheeses of the Mediterranean, a PDO raw sheep's milk cheese, aged and smoked, made by the shepherds of the Barbagia with traditional methods, whose name, "Sardinian flower", comes from the flower carved on the wooden moulds. The village keeps alive the traditions of the Barbagia, such as the carnival with the masks of the S'Urthu and the Sos Tamburinos, drummers. Just below the village lies Lake Gusana, an artificial lake created in the 1960s by damming the Taloro river, surrounded by woods of holm oak and cork oak, with granite rocks emerging from the water, a peaceful landscape ideal for walks, canoeing and fishing. On the shores are nuragic sites and domus de janas, such as those of Sa Itria.
Tip: buy fiore sardo directly from the shepherds' dairies; the festival in July requires booking accommodation well in advance.
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