Orosei

Orosei sits, two kilometers inland from the coast, in the valley the Cedrino has built over an eighty-kilometer run from its source to the river mouth just below the town. The gulf beyond takes its name from the village, not the reverse, and the town's old centre and its churches sit apart from the coastline they are named after: the historic core inland, the cliffs and coves to the south, connected only by the river's short final stretch to the sea. The old town itself holds more churches than most: twenty-seven recorded across its history, thirteen still standing, clustered in and around a centre that also carries the remains of a walled castle and a fortified religious complex nearby.

Baroque, Romanesque and volcanic stone construction sit close together here, the layers of the town's church-building visible within a small radius rather than spread across the wider district. The valley that separates the old town from the cliffs is the same alluvial ground that produces its olive oil, so the same river shapes both the town's inland economy and the outlet where it reaches the sea. Orosei reads, in the end, as an inland settlement whose name attached itself to a coastline it does not touch.

From Cagliari (CAG), about 3h 29m by car.