Talk:Montresta

MONTRESTA SARDINIA ITALY During the rain season the wild countryside around Montresta displays several shades of green. In the spring flowering time visitors can admire the broom yellow flowers and the white and pink flowers of rock roses and asphodel which, together with the wind-shaped oak trees, characterize the landscape. In summer, when colours do not predominate, it is the scent of vegetation that prevails while in autumn the blossoming of strawberry trees provides bees with nectar for their bitter and intense golden honey. Montresta was founded in 1750 at the decision of Carlo Emanuele III who granted its territory to a group of Greek people who had moved from the near island of Corsica (Cargese). They originally came from Morea ( ancient name for Peloponnesus) and more exactly from the Mani peninsula The village is is situated at the foot of Mount Navrino which is 532 metres high. In Greece during the Ottoman period, the city of Navarino (also called Pylos), situated by the Ionian Sea on the homonimous bay, was called Anavarin or, locally, Neokastron (new castle in Greek) and before then, in the Middle Ages, Avarino. In 1499 the city, dominated by Venetians, was conquered by the Turks who occupied it until 1821, except for the period from 1686 to 1715 when Venice tried to conquer it again. It is possible that the inhabitants of Montresta liked the name "new castle" or chose it to remember the battle of Navarino which was fought in the Peloponnesus several decades after their arrival in Sardinia on 20th October 1827, during the Greek war of indipendence.