Ulassai

Ulassai sits on a ledge beneath the Tacchi d'Ogliastra, the limestone buttes that rise like broken teeth above the inland Ogliastra. Su Marmuri opens in the rock outside the village, and the Lequarci waterfalls drop off the Tacchi when winter rains fill them, dry again by summer. The village itself is compact, its upper quarter built around the parish church, its lower streets running toward the old railway line that once connected Ogliastra to the coast and now ends at the station turned museum.

Population has been declining here for decades, a pattern common across the inland villages of the subregion. What keeps Ulassai distinct is the work Maria Lai made of it: a village small enough that one artist's ribbon could reach every house and still climb the mountain above it.