We left the Palazzo Brunaccini with fond memories this morning. Today we start our drive around the island. The front desk called a taxi who drove us to the port area where we picked up car. Now one of the things we have noticed in Italy in the time we have been there is the prevalence of the “man purse” on most males between the ages of 20 and 40. I do not particularly understand the need for this, but I am old and not Italian.
We had arranged our car rental through Expedia months ago and managed to get a car with an automatic transmission for a remarkably good price. We were given a couple choices at the Budget desk, but I said I wanted the smallest one available. My last car in Italy was a Volvo station wagon and it was a bear to navigate through narrow streets.
Palermo traffic was awful, but after about 20 minutes were sailing along the autostrade. Of course, those first few minutes in a rental car are the most nerve-racking because you don’t know where anything is located. We first drove to Segesta, the site of an ancient Greek settlement. Located in the middle of lovely pastoral countryside, Segesta has one of the loveliest temples in Sicily and a beautiful amphitheater.
The temple is largely intact, though the roof is gone. It is made of a local sandstone.
Few classical sites allow tourists to wander around any more, but I think because Segesta is so far from other places, they assume that the tourists who come here know how to behave. You cannot make that assumption on the Palatine Hill in Rome.
The theater is a marvel of design and faces out towards the sea.
John was taken with a more modern architectural wonder, the autostrade winding through the countryside.
We kept driving across the island for about another two and a half hours. Crossing the interior of Siciliy is not the most interesting of trips, but it is certainly better than driving up through the Central Valley of California. Our stop for the night was outside of Agrigento, the Villa Athena Hotel. Now I am a well-known cheapskate, but even I occasionally figure we ought to splurge. So as I had booked several inexpensive sites for the rest of our time in Sicily, I figured we could splurge one night. And this seemed to be the place to do it.
Agrigento is only on the tourist trail for one reason: it is the site of the Valley of the Temples, possibly the most important collection of classical Greek architecture outside of Athens. The Villa Athena is the only hotel located adjacent to the Valley, and from the restaurant and the pool there is a stunning view of the Temple of Concord, the most iconic image of Sicily.
The temple changed color as afternoon turned to evening.
We were tempted to linger for the whole evening at the pool, but a wedding reception was being held at the restaurant and the DJ decided to play American pop music at an unnecessary volume. The older people there seemed a little baffled by Bruno Mars live and other selections. For us, while it is comforting to know, as the slogan suggests, that Visa is everywhere you are, it is not so happy to discover the same about Justin Timberlake. We went to our room.
The hotel offered us a visit to the Valley of the Temples at night when they are all illuminated. This was officially a “gift” from the hotel to its “esteemed clients”, but frankly I figured it had long ago been figured into the room price. John waited in the lobby of the hotel. Like our bedroom, it is pretty much all furnished in white.
We did not come as close to the Temples as we thought we would. I did get this picture of the Temple of Concord, but the detail is only thanks to a good telephoto lens on the back of our camera. John chatted with a couple from Cheltenham, England. There was another English couple who no doubt were lovely people but looked like the parents in Matilda. They did not seem talkative.
After this, they took us into the old center of Agrigento. It was a bit nicer than the guidebooks had suggested, but still nothing special. We were treated to a free gelato and then taken back to the hotel.
