Castello della Fava

The Castello della Fava, named after a curious episode, is located in Posada, a town in the province of Nuoro, considered one of the most beautiful villages in Italy. The castle, built with ashlars of mixed stone, is divided into a non-regular quadrangular wall, inside which there is a square-plan tower, with crenellated crowning, and a series of cisterns. From above you can admire a panorama that embraces the Rio Posada Valley to the beaches around the seaside village of San Giovanni di Posada. The history of the castle sees several disputes, being located in a borderland. In 1380 it fell into the hands of the Aragonese and then returned to the Arboreans under the command of Brancaleone Doria. It is more likely that it was the residence of judges rather than a military garrison, despite the fact that Posada was an important center at the time. Everything suggests that it was built as a tourist residential site. Legend has it that, around 1300, a fleet of Turks landed on the island coasts put Posada under siege in order to conquer it by starvation. To deceive them, despite the fact that the food supplies were almost completely exhausted, the inhabitants made a pigeon eat the last handful of beans left, wounding it slightly. During the flight, the bird fell into the Turkish camp revealing a stomach full of beans. Thus it was that the besiegers, overestimating the food resources of the islanders and convinced they had no hope, lifted the siege and left the coasts of the island for good. History is not too far from real historical facts. Posada and its fortress, built by the judges of Gallura in the thirteenth century, were victims of raids by Saracen pirates starting from the fourteenth century. Evidence of this is also the urban layout of the medieval village, which looks like a labyrinth of narrow alleys and hidden squares whose architecture itself recalls ambushes, assaults and escapes.