Day 31

Buongiorno,

We left the beautiful B&B Nostos this morning, and headed further West to the town of Agrigento. This town is home to a special place, the Valley of the Temples.

Agrigento was founded as a Greek Colony. The Greeks wanted to use it as a port, but it also had a high, easily defended ridge that made the ideal location for a fortified town. Inside the town walls, they started building temples.

The site is huge, so huge it is referred to as an “archeological park”. Despite being called Valley of the Temples, the temples are all sitting on a ridge.

The whole area looked exactly what you expect Sicily to be like. Bright blue sky, hot sunshine, dry dusty ground covered in olive trees. The views over the sea were spectacular. But the temples were even more so.

The first temple is the Temple of Juno, and was built between 450BC and 440BC. It sits right at the top of the ridge, and you can see the remains of this temple sitting high on the hill from miles away. Even though most of the temple is missing, it is still impressive to stand beside the huge columns.

The next temple is the most complete, the Temple of Concord. Buzzy Bee was very impressed by this temple, and insisted on a selfie to add to his collection.

The next most impressive temple was the largely destroyed Temple of

the Olympian Zeus. While largely knocked down over the years and scavenged for building materials for other projects in the town of Agrigento, you still felt awe at the immense size of this temple. It was once the largest temple in the world, larger even that the Parthenon in Athens.

The Greeks built these temples using precisely cut pieces of stone. They look like giant LEGO Duplo blocks.

And that is exactly how it felt to walk among the ruins. As if we had been miniaturised, and we were walking around piles of huge LEGO Duplo blocks that a giant had knocked over.

The scale of each temple was impressive enough, but the number of temples that had been built, all in one place, was staggering.

If you ever get the chance to visit Sicily, Valley of the Temples is an absolute highlight.

The little village of Agrigento, where the temples are located, is also a delight. We are staying right in the heart of the Old Town. Our B&B host is a very nice man. The village is quiet, clean and tidy and refreshingly free of the tourist hoards.

We walked down to the Main Street, about 100 metres away (although it was down many steps). We had a lovely dinner sitting outside in the Piazza, enjoying a balmy evening.

Love to you all, from Grandma and Koro and Buzzy Bee. XXX OOO.