The guidebooks suggested that early morning was the best time to see the Valley of Temples. So we tried to be the first in line when the site opened in the morning — and we were!
Despite the name, the “valley” of the temples is not a valley at all. It is a ridge. The temples were places there to make them more prominent to both the inhabitants of the city, who actually lived in the valley below, roughly where our hotel is today, and to ships sailing towards the city. There were fortifications along the ridge, and in fact some of those walls are also still standing. From gaps in them you can see how the ridge allows excellent views of the sea
and the surrounding countryside. Of course, military security rather than aesthetics were probably paramount here, but I am sure that the Greeks also enjoyed a nice vista.
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Our first stop was the Temple of Juno. As you can see, the tourists here are not allowed to get all that close to the ruins.
But with a good lens on the camera there is much to admire.
Our second stop was the Temple of Concord. This is the one that we can admire from our hotel pool. The enormous bronze here is modern, and probably owes more to Barbarella than it does to anything out of Greek mythology.
This is called the Temple of Concord because nobody can figure our what deity was worshipped here. A much later peace treaty between two warring city states was found here, so the name Temple of Concord stuck. It is by far the most intact Greek structure in Italy. Many of the interior walls are still visible
along with a second row of columns in front.
Of course, if you can see this structure from our hotel, you can also see the Villa Athena from the Temple as well. We did not have the room with the balcony. I am sure that one cost more than the GDP of some small country.
We we left, John wanted to get his picture taken with the angel.
There were two more temples here, but they were a walk and it was getting too hot for John. So we decided to drive to the museum before getting breakfast and leaving Agrigento. Our guide last night had told us that this was the most important archeological museum in Sicily. The museum is located at the other side of the valley on a somewhat smaller ridge. The agora and other municipal sites were here. This is the remains of a kind of amphitheater designed for political discussions rather than theatrical performances.
There was a lot of pottery and the like inside the museum. I am sure that if you were an expert on Greek archeology the distinctions here between the styles of the pottery would have been fascinating. But neither of us have that kind of background. So we went for the most obvious and over-the-top exhibits. This is one of the monumental Atlases from the Temple of Zeus, a temple so ambitious that it was never finished.
Here is a reconstruction of what is would have looked like had they finished it. Notice that unlike most temples, this one is closed off. The Atlases both support the weight of the roof and provide a little light into the interior.
We returned to the hotel and had definitely our best breakfast of the trip. John wanted to remember our all white room,
and the most luxurious bathroom of the trip as well. John is well over the “let’s go camping” time of his life.
We had a beautiful ride to Piazza Amerina through lovely Sicilian country side. Our stop was the Roman Villa in Casale. This has the most important collection of Roman floor mosaics in the world. This seems to be a picture of the lord of the manor. Nobody, however, is completely sure who he is. There is some speculation this may have even been an imperial villa. At any rate, it was the residence of a very important Roman.
One of the interesting features here was that it had our own thermal baths. The “dominus” and his family had their own entrance to it.
Most of the scenes in the villa involve hunting in some way. One long hallway celebrates how the Roman captured animals in Africa and transported them to Rome. This became even more disturbing when you recall that the were not being displayed there for educational and scientific purposes in a humane environment. No, they were being brought there so that they could be publicly slaughtered for the amusement of the public. I have no idea why people from Edward Gibbon to the present decry the “decline and fall of the Roman Empire.” It was a hideously brutal society and would should be happy that this nasty chapter in human history finally came to a close.
Of course, we can see elements of our own society in theirs. Unlike the Greeks, who relegated women to domestic seclusion, Roman women had some status. They had their own athletic competitions.
In fact, the Romans were obsessed with competition and the mosaics in the nursery celebrate this idea. A few of these are somewhat fanciful like this goose-drawn chariot.
We saw the mosaics from elevated metal walkways about five or six feet above the floors. This meant that for visitors to take pictures they had to lean over the rails a bit. Clearly, some poor soul leaned over a bit too much and his cell phone slipped out of his hand!
We left Piazza Amerina intending to go to Ragusa, one of the loveliest of Sicily’s small cities. But as we headed towards the highway, we found ourselves dealing with a little bit of traffic!
We were both actually quite surprised by how street wise the goats were, and in no time at all they were on to their next destination. We were too … at least for a while. Sicily’s has a few high-speed, limited-access highways, but most of the secondary roads seem to have been planned by, well, goats. They meander up and down and around. I found this a bit challenging for driving, but generally charming. John unfortunately is quite prone to motion sickness and before long her became quite ill. We ended up in Gela, not at all one of Sicily’s most charming towns, sitting in the car outside a gas station while he waited for the dramamine to take effect. By the time he was feeling well enough to travel again, we needed to go straight to our lodging outside Siracusa.
We are staying in a masseria or farmhouse tonight. This is some of the most charming yet inexpensive accommodations available for travelers in Italy. We had a lovely reception from our host — who spoke no English — and we settled into our room for a quiet evening.
