Anna Mulas turned 100 this March. Just two years ago she was still ploughing the garden outside her house (her son Sergio shows me a video of his 98-year-old mother wielding a pickaxe with aplomb). An…
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The Telegraph
2022-08-08T11:00:00Z
Anna Mulas turned 100 this March. Just two years ago she was still ploughing the garden outside her house (her son Sergio shows me a video of his 98-year-old mother wielding a pickaxe with aplomb).
Anna is one of five centenarians in Seulo, Sardinia – a town of just 800 or so inhabitants. Last week, I’m told, there were seven. From 1996 to 2016, Seulo had 20 people aged 100 or more – making it, locals claimed, the record holder for the most centenarians per capita on the planet.
Several towns in the area dispute this, each vying for the crown. All form part of Sardinia’s ‘Blue Zone’ – one of five such areas around the world where scientists have found people live an abnormally long time.
This cluster of villages in the spiky mountains of Nuoro province has around 10 times more centenarians per capita than the US or Britain, according to the Blue Zones Institute, which identifies and researches these ageless regions.
For the towns, their longevity has become something of a calling card. In Seulo, portraits of deceased centenarians adorn the stone walls of the homes they once lived in – with captions detailing their stories and the secrets to their long lives. One reads: “Antonio Carta: Never smoked. Used to eat everything but never ate too much. Loved eggs with pork lard.”
I’m 27 and my only current anti-ageing rituals are using an SPF moisturiser and turning on Radio 1 when I have friends over… before immediately switching back to Radio 4 when they leave. I have a lot to learn.
“It’s a very natural way of life here. The traditional goat herder and shepherd lifestyle is still influential. Even the oldest residents have very active lifestyles,” explains Maria Paola Loi, a guide who works with luxury travel company Black Tomato to offer tours of the Blue Zone. Luigi Carta, 99, who ran a tailor shop in Seulo, says: “Until last year I was still driving to my vineyard to look after my grapes and plant vegetables. Then I lost my licence.”
Diet is important too, but the superfoods are surprising: namely vast quantities of pork. “The pigs roam free here and sometimes mate with wild boar – so the meat is very high quality,” Maria Paola says.
Add to that the local crispy flat bread (pane carasau), plus lashings of pasta, and you have an anti-ageing feast to send Gwyneth Paltrow running.
There is no better celebration of the Sardinian diet than that laid out by Pasqua Salis (aged 84) at her hotel, Su Gologone. Secreted in the craggy folds of the Blue Zone, the hotel channels ancient Sardinian customs, with hand-embroidered furnishings and galleries selling local crafts in rustic buildings. On regular evenings, guests are invited to the “bread nest” – a terrace perched above a furnace where elderly ladies in traditional dress bake delight after glutenous delight as you enjoy the last kisses of sunset.
A force of nature herself, Pasqua puts local life expectancy down to respect for the elderly, close neighbourly ties and a good glass of red wine: “People here are not afraid of getting old because they are always respected and feel useful by working.”
One of the key linking threads between the five Blue Zones is that they tend to be geographically and culturally isolated from the rest of the world. So traditional ways of living, eating and working are more likely to be preserved.
As for the wine, there’s science behind this. Cannonau di Sardegna, widely drunk in the Blue Zone, has two to three times the level of flavonoids as other wines. This has been shown to help maintain arteries and normal blood pressure, reducing your chance of heart disease. Appropriate then that a traditional toast here is
Aside from clues to a long life, the Nuoro region hides other treasures: from the exquisite filigree workshops of Dorgali to the 150 murals that bedaub the streets of Orgosolo narrating its history, and one of Europe’s deepest canyons, Gola Su Gorropu, where golden eagles glide over 500m limestone walls.
As life expectancies globally extend, interest is growing in travel based around how to age well and the industry is adapting to cater. In Sardinia, 7Pines, a new luxury resort on the glamorous Costa Smeralda, is also offering excursions to the Blue Zone, including a guided tour and local produce tasting. Prices start from €395 (£331) per person including food and transport.
You can do cooking workshops at the hotel too, where the chef initiates you into the diet of the Blue Zone – with ingredients p
