Agrigento and Syracuse

We stayed in another agriturismo B&B at Agrigento. I had a nice dip in the small pool, but apart from the pool this was more of a proper country villa than the previous place. There were lots of hens, a couple of dogs, one large, one small, peacocks, and in the morning we were woken, first by the doves on the roof over our heads, and then by something emitting tremendous honks like someone having fun with a tuba. In the evening, we could see the temples across a dip on the ridge illuminated. It was quite a sight.

 

The temples from our B&B 

It was another really good breakfast with fresh smoothies and bread, which while solid, was tasty.

Agrigento is a massive site, so we concentrated on the temples, and although there are some interesting churches in the town proper, we had had enough of the traffic yesterday, and decided to give them a miss. The drive was harder than expected, because the viaduct is closed - some of the supports are unsafe. This keeps happening, and sometimes tunnels are closed. We are then sent on long detour through difficult roads. They are unsafe under normal conditions, and bear in mind that this is an earthquake area. I believe the shoddy workmanship is mafia related. 

The main sight at Agrigento is the Temple of Concord. It's the one whose front is used as the badge for UNESCO  World Heritage sites. It survived becaus it was turned into a church, and also because it is on a bed of clay which acted as a shock absorber in the earthquake that brought down the other temples. It's thought that the builders knew this.

Temple of Concord (not the original dedication.)

It was pretty hot and not much shade, and both Phil and I were amused by the way experienced guides crowded their groups into what shade there was before embarking on the lecture. It made us sad, too, remembering our guide in Syria, Adnan, who seemed to know every patch of shade. Goodness knows what's happened to him. There certainly won't be any western tourists. Mind you, he did tell us how he couldn't stand Shiá muslims. I can't say I was surprised when Syria fell apart - it seemed a really unhappy country when we were there. And remembering  all that depressed us more than ever, because I recited "Ozymandias" on the stage at Palmyra Roman theatre to test the acoustics, and apparently it's now being used for executions.

The museum was wonderfully cool and had some red figure and black figure Greek vases of superb quality and one or two excellent sculptures. It also had a reproduction of one of the telamons from the Temple of Zeus, erected so one could properly appreciate its gigantic proportions.

Then we had a good meal quite close to the temple site; the restaurant was patronised by many local business people which is always a good sign. We set off to drive all the way to Siracusa. For all the reasons I've mentioned it was quite tiring and we were very glad to reach the hotel, which is a modern business type hotel although since it is French owned, a French bus tour is here.

Breakfast was really good - there was a ricotta tart which Phil actually sampled and a choice of almond, coffee, or lemon granita, on top of all he more expected stuff.. We are down to two meals a day, the breakfasts are so good.

It was a short walk to the main archaeological site. The Roman amphitheatre is closed, and so is the early church, but you can see the large cistern under the church, which stored water for cleaning or flooding the amphitheatre.

There is a simply vast altar on which well over a hundred oxen could be sacrificed at one time.

The Greek theatre is really terrific and one can't help be impressed to think that it showed the first production of Aeschylus' plays, and Plato and Archimedes attended plays in this very theatre. There are three plays showing at present  - Iphigenia in Aulus, The Supplicants and Medea. We did think of going but it's The Supplicants the night we are here, which we don't know, and of course they are performed in Italian. So we decided against it. But the theatre was so evocative and the setting so dramatic that we started to regret it, although we know that after we have walked all around Syracuse, we'll be too tired to enjoy a play while sitting on backless stone seats.

The sacred spring.

The Nymphaeum with niches for offerings around it.

There is a very impressive fountain at the top of the theatre. The Greeks and later the Romans seem to have made use of numerous springs coming through faults in the rock from miles away in the hills. 

Later, on Ortigia, the island end of Syracuse, we saw the spring of Arethusa, named after one of Artemis' followers who was turned into a spring in an attempt to shake off an importunate lover. It's in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Nelson's fleet watered at this spring on its way to beat the French at the battle of the Nile. It's very pretty, in spite of the Italian blindness to litter, with a large clump of papyrus in the basin, ducks and carp. In a couple of steps is the sea. No wonder the site appealed to the Greeks.

The fountain of Arethusa

The stone quarries are well worth seeing - they have turned into gardens full of lemon trees, acanthus, baobabs and edible figs, oleander and bougainvillea. They are lovely to wander through, marveling at the size of the caverns and blocks which have been removed, and being careful not to think too hard about the 7000 Athenian prisoners of war, who died here of heat and starvation. There are lots of tombs cut into the rock - one is said to be that of Archimedes. It obviously isn't, but it's a nice walk.                 

 

The quarries - Dionysos' ear - named
By Caravaggio because of its shape,
and because he believed the Tyrant used
its strange acoustics to listen in on people.

We had a look at a modern church, built because in 1953 a statue of the virgin is alleged to have started to weep. This was followed by miracle cures. It's round, like the RC cathedral in Liverpool, known as Paddy's Wigwam, although the altar is not in the centre, but to one side. It's nice though  -not overdecorated, and the architecture is allowed to speak for itself.

Then we wandered along the sea front and around Ortigia, the island at the very tip. There are many restored palazzi and a few crumbling ones. The Duomo is completely amazing. It took over the temple of Athena, dated fourth century B.C.,  and although a baroque front has been stuck on, you can see the original Doric pillars built into the walls, where the peristyle was simply bricked up.

It was very exciting to think we'd actually been in a Greek temple.

The fortress at the tip of Ortigia

We had a superb lunch late and, very full indeed, waddled back to the hotel to collapse.