Welcome to Tortolì and Arbatax [ you are in Ogliastra ]
Tortolì is a small Sardinian town of just over 10,000 inhabitants, provincial capital together with the other town Lanusei of the so-called Province of Ogliastra.
This province is located in the central area of Sardinia, between the provinces of Nuoro and Cagliari and is washed by the Tyrrhenian Sea.
A small curiosity is offered by the fact that with its only 23 municipalities and 50 thousand inhabitants, the province of Ogliastra, led by Tortoli and Lanusei, it is the least populated in Italy.
The first historical notes of Tortolì (although its foundation dates back to 3000 BC.) they date back to the domination during the Roman Empire by foreign populations, first the Carthaginians, then the Goths, to pass under Arab and finally Spanish rule. Around 1100 it became part of the Giudicato of Cagliari and became the capital of the County of Quirra.
Its recent history is more detailed: in 1807 it became the provincial capital until 1859 when it left the scepter to Lanusei and became part of the province of Cagliari.
However, one of the darkest pages in the history of this country was written in 1869 when smallpox arrived in the city., brought by a prisoner, which claims numerous victims. Smallpox itself continued to cause deaths in 1908, until the even worse Spanish Flu arrived.
Meanwhile, Tortolì changes province again and passes under Nuoro until 2005 when it becomes the capital of Ogliastra with Lanusei.
Another black page was finally written in the Second World War when Tortolì, in particular its port of Arbatax, is bombed by 18 planes to interrupt our country's maritime trade. A few years earlier he had received a visit from Mussolini.
