Agrigento

 

Sunday was our long-anticipated trip to the city of Agrigento, the location of the Valley of the Temples. The drive was a bit long, at two hours, but very scenic. We spotted several aqueducts, and the rural, mountainous countryside was beautiful.

 

We took lots of pictures, and have included a few good shots of the temples. We would definitely recommend a visit to Agrigento to anyone visiting Sicily!

 



This is the first temple in our tour of the Valley. It is dedicated to Juno (or Hera), and all of the weddings of the Greek city of Agracas took place here (The city was renamed Agrigento when the Roman Empire took over). It also has the only complete altar remaining in the Valley, which Landon had a great time climbing! This temple was built in the 6th century BC.

A good portion of the old city walls of Agracas are still standing on the southern edge. There are arches visible in the walls that the Greeks used for frescoes. The Byzantine Christians who later conquered Agrigento used these recesses as tombs. Landon was going to climb in until he realized what tombs were! The view from the old wall is picturesque, and you can see straight to the Mediterranean.

This is the Temple Concordia, named for an inscription found inside the temple. It is unknown which god or goddess this temple was dedicated to. It is one of the only complete ancient Greek temples that still stands today, without having undergone reconstruction. Our guide told us that it is very rare for both of the sima, or triangular parts on either end, to remain intact.

View from the entrance to the Temple Concordia, looking toward the back. You can see the naos, or interior building. The bare walls have no recesses for statues, so it is assumed that there were murals painted on the walls. Also, in their time, these temples were all white--they were covered in lime to be reminiscent of the marble temples in Greece, since the Greeks were unable to find marble on Sicily.

The Temple of Hercules is the oldest temple in the Valley, built in the 7th century BC. Only one of the columns was left standing until the 1800s, when a British captain moved to Agrigento and devoted his personal fortune to reconstructing the fallen temples. The reconstruction of this temple was halted when a worker was killed on site, and it remains as the captain's team left it, with pieces of the other columns and parts lying around the foundation.

We all thought it was amazing to be so near, even touching in some cases, to ancient Greek history. The anecdotal history given by our tour guide was full of interesting facts about everything from the daily life of the Greeks to special strategies of building the temples.  But, it was a very hot day, and we were also all glad to spend a few hours at a nearby lido to cool off and rest a bit before heading back home!

For our full photo album from this trip, see our Facebook pages!

Our house is now a home!

Last Monday was the long-awaited day--our household goods arrived! We had been looking forward to this since the day we landed in Sicily: no more less-than-comfy loaner furniture, no more cooking with non-nonstick pans! Having our own things and decorating the house! Yes, yes, yes!

But, of course, it was not just as simple as the movers unloading and reassembling our things while we check off each inventory number on their list.....because the inventory list made by our Virginia moving company was not numbered. And the random items that had an inventory sticker on them, well, that number didn't have a point of reference anywhere at all. Plus, the item descriptions were all confused (of course, they also marked that ALL of our things were scratched, dented, worn, etc.--we bought all new furniture a year ago!)

The Italian movers said they'd never seen anything like it. Our crates didn't have a security seal, our flatscreen TV was simply wrapped in brown paper (it miraculously survived), we opened one unlabeled box that contained everything from our TV remote to a baking dish. Another box had metal golf cleats thrown in with gauze scarves. A very expensive easel was thrown into a box with brushes dumped upside down on top of it, no packing material for padding. Not to mention the lack of inventory numbers made it nearly impossible for them to verify that everything was delivered for their company records. We ended up writing down a list of numbers from the stickers on some items, and another list of item descriptions which didn't have numbers. We still don't know how they sorted all of that out in their offices!

Every time we opened a box, we became more and more convinced that either a) these people had never actually packed for a move before, b) they were lacking some crucial pieces of common sense, or c) they simply had no respect for our belongings. We are leaning more toward the last option!

But, it was our stuff, and it was largely intact! After the frantic pace of Monday's day-long marathon of unloading and furniture assembly, we were left with piles of boxes in each room and the loaner furniture (along with very dirty floors!).

So began the week-long unpacking and arranging process...which is for the most part finished, now. We have 4 boxes left in the house to unpack, plus a stack of frames and things that need to be hung. The downstairs is visitor-ready, and our bedrooms are organized and all clothes put away. The most daunting task, the playroom, was finally finished yesterday! The house is looking good, and feeling like home. It's such a relief. Now we can just focus on our upcoming trip to Agrigento, Landon starting school, and Billy's baseball team!

Day Trip!

Last weekend, we took a day trip to the northeast corner of the island to see a medieval town called Santa Lucia del Mela, and also visited a beach. This was our longest trip yet! It took about 2 hours to drive to Santa Lucia.
When we got there, we realized very quickly that we'd be leaving the car behind. The streets got more and more narrow with every turn. The town is situated on a small mountain, with a castle or castello at the very top. We ended up parking the car about a quarter of the way up the mountain!
Hiking through the town was pretty hard, especially with the stroller and a temperature in the mid- to high 90s, but completely worth it to see the gorgeous view at the top! Plus, it was really cool to see firsthand how life in a (somewhat) modernized medieval city is like. Here is what we could see from the castle:

Our original intention was to attend the annual festival the town holds, featuring a king and queen, the royal court, knights and jousting, and music. But when we reached the castle, it was still over 2 hours before the festival was to begin! We were all hot and tired, and pretty satisfied with all of the sights we got to see, so we decided to head to the beach. We ended up in Roccolumera, at a pebbly beach with crystal clear water. Billy and I tried out our new snorkeling gear, Landon also "snorkeled" in the shallow water, and Logan was happy holding rocks!

After an hour or so of beach fun, it was time to head home. It was a beautiful drive down the coastline! We can't wait to go back and explore the eastern beaches some more.