Four or five thousand years ago, people on the high plateau of Campo di Santa Lucia in Sardinia carved a whole apartment of rooms into a cliff of soft volcanic rock, to house their dead. The Sardinians call these rock-cut tombs domus de janas, houses of the fairies, and Sant'Andrea Priu, near Bonorva, has some of the most remarkable. The largest, known as the Tomba del Capo, has a series of chambers whose walls and ceilings imitate the beams and pillars of a real house. Centuries later, in the early Christian and Byzantine period, it was converted into a church and its walls were painted with frescoes, some of which survive.
In 2025, UNESCO listed the funerary traditions of prehistoric Sardinia, with the domus de janas as its centrepiece. Sant'Andrea Priu is one of the best places to understand them. The plateau around it is wide and green in spring, golden in summer, with cork oaks, pastures and dry-stone walls. Sheep are everywhere, and their milk becomes pecorino sardo, the island's famous cheese. Near the tombs stands a large rock carved by nature into a shape that locals call the bull.
The riding in this part of Sardinia is rewarding and lonely. The SS131, the Carlo Felice, is the main north-south road, fast and busy, but leave it and the minor roads cross the plateaus and climb through hills with broad, open curves and very little traffic. The surfaces vary, and livestock may be on the road. Summer is hot and dry, with the mistral blowing strong, while winter can be cold and windy on the plateau. Spring is the best time, when the fields are green and covered with flowers.
Bonorva has fuel, shops and cafés; Macomer, nineteen kilometres away, is a larger town with more choice. Sardinian food is hearty: roast suckling pig, culurgiones, stuffed pasta, carta da musica, a thin crisp bread, and local cheeses. The nuraghe of Santu Antine, one of the finest Bronze Age towers on the island, is nearby at Torralba and worth a detour. When you visit the tombs, take time to let your eyes adjust to the darkness and look for the painted figures; they are faint, but still there after fifteen centuries.