Valley of the Temples

Today we tour the UNESCO World Heritage Site, the valley of the temples in Agrigento.

We started our tour at 9:30 am, giving us some time to look for birds in the gardens behind the hotel before the tour. I’ve been trying to get a serin photo since the beginning of this trip. We’ve heard them many places and I’ve seen them a few places too.

The Valley of the Temples really isn’t a valley, it’s a ridge between the sea on the south and higher hills to the north. The temples were built on the ridge and the ancient town is in the shallow valley to the north of the ridge continuing up the hills on the north.

The Greeks founded the city of Akragas here in 581 BC. The Romans called it Agrigentum, and captured it in the first Punic war.

We met our local tour guide under an 800 year old olive tree.

The first temple we saw is the Temple of Hera.

There is a solid stone wall that had crypts carved into it in Christian times for burials.

There are gaps in the wall where you can look out over the valley below. The archeological park leases out some of the buffer zone land around it for farming.

The second temple is the Temple of Concordia.

The last temple we saw as a group is the Temple of Hercules

I saw this interesting flower among the stones.

We were given some free time, most folks were tired and wanted to look in the market area or sit in the shade (it was hot). I went on and saw the Temple of Zeus which isn’t in very good shape.

The Temple of Zeus was the largest structure, but it’s fallen down. It was ringed by 38 statues of men holding up the edges of the roof. These were called telemons or atlas.

After the visit to the temples, our tour guide would either drop you off at the hotel where you could get lunch on your own, or go up the hill to the newer part of town to visit a monestary, Santo Spirito, were the nuns bake and sell cookies, followed by lunch on your own.

The cookies had either figs or dates in them. Donna bought a couple with pistachio in them for later tonight.

We ate lunch by this art piece made of umbrellas.

While eating, a bridal party came by for a photo shoot under the umbrellas.