Santa Giusta

Population: 3,550

This town is situated just outside Oristano, near the Santa Giusta lagoon, which constitutes its biggest economic resource and is of great natural interest because of the vast bird life that its supports. The territory has been inhabited by man since ancient times.

Testimony to this rich history can be seen in the Nuragiana and Nuracheddu Nuraghi. However, evidence of an even older civilisation is revealed in the survival of a particular boat known as 'fassonis'. It was made from the woven grasses of the marshlands and was similar to the boats used in the Persian Gulf (on the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers), on the Nile, on Lake Titicar and on the Peruvian coasts of the Pacific.

Othoca was the name of the ancient settlement, first Punic and later Roman, on the site of which the town of Santa Giusta now stands. The extraordinary Romanesque-Pisan basilica dedicated to the Martyr Santa Giusta rises up in the centre of the town, built between 1135 and 1145.