A common man marvels at uncommon things. A wise man marvels at the commonplace. CONFUCIUS

Friday 9 July 2010

Agrigento: The Valley Of The Temples (1)


It took the best part of a day to travel by slow, provincial train from Noto to Agrigento. Worse still I had a hangover, as it had been my lovingpartner's birthday the night before, which we'd celebrated with a very fine meal, but far too many limoncellos ...

First the train crawled through a flat landscape of grassland and cereal fields. Then it became hillier and more interesting - lots of citrus and vines, all in little plots. Though many of these orchards and vineyards were covered in unsightly, white plastic sheeting - presumably to protect against the pigeons, of which there were vast flocks ...

Finally we arrived at Agrigento. It's famous for its Greek ruins - some of the best outside Greece. But let's leave that till tomorrow. For now we had to drag our cases up the Via Atenea to the most delighful B&B you could ever hope to find. This was the view from our breakfast terrace (painted, I think, by the lady owner, who was Portuguese) ...


And this is my own photo of it ...



The next day, before entering The Valley of the Temples, we spent a couple of hours in the Archaeological Museum, where there were many beautiful vases ...

3 comments:

George said...

Looking forward to the next posting on Agrigento. I also find myself wondering why lemoncello was not on your supply list for the backyard wilderness experience.

Tramp said...

I blew up the photo of the vase to look at the detail. It looks to me as if the woman is holding a spanner...Tramp

The Solitary Walker said...

George - the reason is, we'd already drunk the bottles we'd brought back. Otherwise they would have been first on the list, lightweight or not ;)

Tramp - I've had a closer look at it myself. That spanner - indeed, the whole tableau - beats me. Anyone any interpretive suggestions?