Cammino di San Giorgio Vescovo

From the southern outskirts of Cagliari, the saint's birthplace, the Cammino di San Giorgio Vescovo (Way of Saint George the Bishop) stretches north across nearly five hundred kilometres of inland Sardinia, laid out in nineteen stages that reach Oliena, in the heart of the Nuoro Barbagia. This is not a route built around a single, uniform landscape: the trail crosses basalt plateaus, river gorges, downy oak woods and territories where human presence grows sparse, almost discreet. The towns that punctuate the walk — Osini, Ussassai, Esterzili, Orroli, among others — belong to a Sardinia that does not reveal itself at first glance and keeps its own measure of time.

The figure to whom the walk is dedicated is Giorgio, bishop of the Ecclesia Barbariensis based in Suelli, who lived around the year one thousand. The very name of Suelli, a town in the Campidano of Cagliari also known for the Piscu nuraghe, traces back in its Sardinian etymology to the episcopal title. Strictly documentary knowledge of Giorgio is scarce: tradition describes him as an evangeliser of the Barbagia communities, and the devotion he left behind can be measured in the number of rural churches and countryside shrines dedicated to him along the entire spine of the route. The walk does not reconstruct a biography, but follows the traces of an ancient pilgrimage, whether historical or legendary.

The landscape that accompanies the walker for much of the route belongs to a lesser-known Sardinia, the inland world far from the coastal circuits. The basalt plateaus of the Giara and the Sarcidano gradually give way to gorges carved by rivers, then to woods climbing toward the elevations of the Barbagia. It is a succession of environments that demands physical adaptation and attention: the more demanding stretches alternate rocky paths with unpaved roads, and the distance between one settlement and the next calls for careful planning of stops. The network of hospitality in the villages along the way is an integral part of the experience, not a mere logistical detail.

Reaching Oliena, the walk's final point, means completing a crossing through some of the least populated areas in Italy. The town, at the foot of the Supramonte, is known for the springs of Su Gologone and for the limestone that marks the surrounding landscape. But for those who walk the route in full, Oliena is above all the point where the distance covered takes on concrete weight, measurable in days and in shifts of terrain. The Cammino di San Giorgio Vescovo remains one of the few Italian itineraries able to offer this balance of length, isolation and narrative continuity — religious, geographic, historical — without any one of the three prevailing over the others.