Trip to Agrigento

Up early again - after 4 a.m. which is an improvement on the 3 a.m. of yesterday. Bonus is that I can do blog, attend to emails AND we were able to do a Facetime call to Dave, discussing the leadership coup involving Tony Abbott being rolled.

So, Guiseppe kindly put on 'early' breakfast - 7:45 a.m. rather than 8 a.m. which we gobbled down quickly - not difficult given it is only fruit, yoghurt, brioche or croissant - pretty standard fare in this part of the world.

We needed to leave early to do the 20 minute walk to the station to catch the train to Agrigento. All went to plan although something got lost in translation and I ended up with one-way rather than return tickets, not that it is a problem.

We enjoyed the train journey passing pretty beaches (people relaxing under umbrellas and swimming) and gazing out to the mountains that press in close to the coast; the train eventually climbed away from the sea up into the hillier area through the centre of Sicily. There is much manual labour in the fields: men were busy tilling the soil either by hand or with a tractor; plots of cabbages or cauliflowers (I'm not sure which) were common and interestingly there were irrigated plantations of cactus (or prickly pear - known here as fichi d'India) which apparently are popular in cooking. We passed many abandoned stations and stopped at others waiting for trains coming through the opposite way. One station not far out of Palermo was Bagheria which is where Guttuso the painter was born.

After 2 hours of relaxed travel, we were met at the station and whisked off by car by Teresa, our guide for the next couple of hours for a private tour of the Valli dei Templi.

Agrigento (population 60000) is spread across a steep hill 230 m above sea level overlooking the southern coast to Tunisia - on the opposite side of the island to Palermo. Founded as a Greek colony in the 6th century B.C., the city became one of the leading cities in the Mediterranean world.

The Valli dei Templi is an important archeological site a few kilometres away on the southern outskirts of the city.

This is a UNESCO world heritage site of temples. Teresa made sense of it all for us without us having to refer constantly to guide books and we enjoyed her information and she patiently answered all our questions as we clicked away merrily with our cameras, walking under umbrellas in the very hot sun.

We focussed on just the main ones: the temples of Hera (or Juno Lacinia), Concordia, Hercules and Olympian Zeus (this one is mostly a pile of rubble). The Temple of Concordia is truly amazing; it is the most impressive surviving Doric temple in the Greek world after the Parthenon in Athens. Apparently its survival is due to its being adapted for use as a Christian church in the 6th century A.D.

Afterwards, Teresa took us back to the centre of Agrigento (and we met Michele who I had made the booking through). 

We enjoyed a gelato, a Birra Morretti and the most delicious and filling panini for lunch before catching the mid-afternoon train back to Palermo. 

We "hot-footed" it back to our B&B where Guiseppe had kindly looked after our bags for the day, one last trip down the creaking lift of his building, and a short walk of a few blocks to our next hotel where we were to meet up with our Intrepid tour group at 6 p.m.

The group is all-Australian and very much our demographic - they seem like a nice crowd and we enjoyed our evening meal out with our guide Stefano who is 39 years old and a local Palermitan. I am glad we have done a lot of Mafia pre-reading because he is a member of the local anti-Mafia group. I think we'll be in for a strong dose of all-things-Mafia.

Stefano took us to a local restaurant I was thrilled to be going to. It was on my “to-do list" having been recommended by the Italian food writer Plotkin (given to me by Kim many years ago when she replaced hers with a newer edition). Antica Focacceria San Francesco is very historic (it is said Garibaldi ate here after liberating Palermo); it serves specialties such as guasteddu (a fresh crispy crusted roll with slices of spleen and Caciocavallo cheese - I gave this only a small nibble!), arancini, sfincioni (light, pizzalike snacks with onion & tomato), panelle (chickpea fritters) and, for main course, I had pasta norma (delicious - we had been told about this dish by Teresa in Agrigento earlier in the day who was preparing it for her own dinner!); followed by yummy cannoli. Plus some great red wine Etna DOC.

A great finish to a very good day.