Today was all about the Valley of the Temples. This is justifiably considered one of the jewels of Sicily, and is one of the most outstanding examples of ancient Greek art and the architecture of Magna Graecia, the wider Grecian empire.
Breakfast was provided this morning, and was good. There was a plate of strange orange fruit which looked dried or preserved, but wasn't. It turned out to be fichi d'India, the local name for cactus fruit. I don't think we've had them before, but they were tasty if a little pippy.
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| Cactus fruit |
It took 90 minutes to drive to the site from Piazza Armerina. A piece of cobbled road leaving Piazza Armerina is the single roughest bit of road we've ever travelled. I'm sure the poor wee car was shaken within an inch of its life. Overall though the roads are better than we expected, and we've seen no evidence of the wild Sicilian driving that articles and websites often mention.
Sicily is clearly the poor cousin of mainland Italy and doesn't appear to receive much support. The temple site was in very tired condition. Most of the concrete paths are rough and crumbling, the entry booths were totally undermanned and the facilities at the entry were very crude - little wooden cabins of cheap souvenirs.
Despite the name, the Valley of the Temples is in fact a ridge, with 7 golden limestone Greek Doric temples spread over its 1.5 kilometre length, various other constructions, and a now invisible city below the ridge. Several of the temples are in particularly good shape considering they all date from the 5th century BC, but the second largest Greek temple in the western Mediterranean, the Temple of Zeus, had largely been looted for its stone. The city of Akragas once held 200,000 people, yet it now just fields and trees, almost entirely invisible now, with the modern town of Agrigento above it on another ridge.
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| Valley of the Temples, Agrigento |
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| Looking back along the ridge |
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| Temple of Zeus - giant karytid, one of many once propping up the roof |
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| The Temple of Zeus' platform |
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| The Temple of Concordia |
The weather for once was a little cooler and quite overcast, which was a mercy as the site is pretty bare and shadeless. We enjoyed nearly 3 hours wandering from one end to the other, looking at the ruins, reading the very good descriptions, and trying to imagine what it once might have been like. In its heyday it must have been spectacular - the Vatican or Rome of the Greek world. Again we were so glad to be off season.
It was only a 10 minute drive to get up into Agrigento town and find a park. We had arancini again for a late lunch, walked 80m to our rooms and self checked in. A number of places have been or will be like that, with either a code or a lockbox. It certainly makes arrival easier.
A walk through Agrigento showed it be be another town struggling to survive. We walked down the main street, then back through some alleyways which were probably the worst we have ever seen, and that includes back streets of Asia and Morocco. Months' or years' worth of filth and rubbish piled up against walls, pigeon droppings everywhere, and dozens of empty and abandoned buildings. There is little ethic of being tidy here. Along the larger roads there are frequent safety bays where the road widens a little. Each and every one of them is full of rubbish where drivers have deliberately pulled over, dragged bags of rubbish from the boot, dumped them and driven off.
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| Agrigento has a particularly mellow-coloured stone |
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| Agrigento in the evening |
On the flip side, the people have all been super helpful and friendly. Every service has been given with a smile. Being understood or understanding sometimes takes a few moments and several tries, but hasn't been a problem. There's always Mr Google to fall back on, though we haven't need his help much at all. We've been enjoying the spoken Italian, and I'm picking up more each day as I get used to the speed and intonations. Karen is picking up some too which is pleasing her greatly.
What John didn't mention, was that I understood a question that our Italian host was asking us this morning before he did. Woohoo!
As is typical in other parts of Italy, Sicilians emerge after their siesta and socialise in the streets and bars in the early evening. It's always fun to watch the interactions. Usually, it's a time for the old men to gather on the park benches and have a good old yarn. I guess their wives are back home making dinner! I took the photo below because it was such a laugh seeing all these guys on their mobile phones, just like the younger generation.
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| Post-siesta socialising |
We had a simple dinner of a panini from a local joint. The favourite here is clearly something called milza. It is very thinly sliced spleen, forked out of a giant bubbling vat, layered thickly on half a panini, squashed to remove excess fluid, drizzled with lemon juice and then topped with the second half of the panini. Looks rather good. We chose something else though!
