Agrigento

Today we took our first day trip. We went to Agrigento to see the Valle dei Templi - Valley of Temples. These are some ruins built by the Greeks dedicated to their gods - Zeus, Juno, Hercules and others. They were later also used by the Romans and at least one was transformed into a Christian basilica dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul.

It started off cloudy and even rained a few times, but by the end of the afternoon it was very hot and sunny. We went with a man Brad works with and his family - it was a fun day. We did go to the Archeological museum as well, but unless you are really interested in the Necropoli and all of the things that have been excavated you may be overloaded on vases and a lot of small statues and oil lamps and things that were apparently discovered buried there within the sarcophogi. There was a intricately carved marble one for a very small child and the carvings actually showed his birth and then him on his deathbed, and then being driven away in a chariot to the world 'beyond'. There were a few skulls and various pieces of jewelry and some very strange sculptures of bronze and marble.

We got some great exercise and the views were fabulous although there still seems to be a haze over the sea - even from where we live it has been more hazy than clear most days. Hopefully that will all burn off soon so we can see for a long way and also be able to enjoy the beautiful blues of the Med.

Follow this link to see some of the pictures we took. If you view as a slide show and then click on the first picture, you will see the name and any descriptions we might have added so far:
http://www.flickr.com/gp/8514449@N06/S672WN

The valley of the temples archeological area is a UNESCO world heritage site. You can learn more about it by going to http://www.parcovalledeitempli.it - select 'eng' for English. There is a lot of fascinating history in Sicily and this is part of it.