Trip Report

October 9, Monday

Today we were off to Sciacca. The day is gorgeous. We drove through varied landscapes. At one point we were very high above an enormous valley. Once we were stopped on a bridge over a valley. We must have been 500 feet above the valley floor. We drove along the sea which was spectacularly turquoise. At about 12:30 we got to Agrigento and the Valley of the Temples. We ate lunch at the Trattoria die Templi. Nice enough. A self-service Sicilian antipasti - all vegetables. A nice fish pasta for me and for Luther a shellfish pasta.

After lunch we went to see the temples, most of which were under some scaffolding - what's new?! There were three with some standing columns. One had a roof, two had something at the top of the pillars and one, the one to Zeus was all fallen down in a heap of stone. A little sad.

The Mediteranean behind the temple. Those Greeks knew location, location, location.	Temple.	See where the fresco would have been?

After that we drove straight to Sciacca. We had no trouble finding the hotel Verditechnica. They had given us good directions. Pascale who, with her husband, owns the place strode out to meet us. She is French but speaks perfect English. It has around seven apartments (self catering). Ours had a kitchen, living room, a bedroom upstairs and a nook with a single bed. It's cozy if a little damp feeling. It was a barn I was told that was made into the apartments. It is half underground.

Table and chairs with flowers.	Garden and our door.	The kitchen.

We went to the supermarket - wow! What a bad selection. We bought some mystery meat labeled vitello but it was beef, not veal in my book. We bought egg noodles and beans too. The dinner was edible but that was about it. Pascale gave us free rein in her herb garden so I put some herbs in. Afterwards we sat outside in our own private garden and Luther smoked his cigar.

October 10, Tuesday

We were off to Selinunte today to see more ruins. We had toast and coffee for breakfast, from the supermarket.

The ruins were great. Way up above the sea. There were once six or eight temples to the gods. Now there is one that is mostly standing and one that has a few columns and a bit of pediment. All the rest are huge jumbles of stone. It must have been something. They were built in around 600 BC. One of the temples you could see, had just fallen straight over sideways, just like building blocks.

Columns.	See the fallen down temple behind the standing one?	Here is an idea of the size of these stones.
Beautiful.	Enormous.	Another jumble of temple.

After visiting the ruins the day turned south. We went to Marsala which is a seaside town with typical crowded streets. We drove a couple of miles along the shore to find Delphino, a recommended restaurant. Alas, it was closed. We tried to find Villa Favortina, also closed. By now it was nearly 2PM and we could find no pizzerias, trattorias, or restaurants open at all. So frustrating. We finally stopped in a little deli and had two beers and two sandwiches. We headed back. All the shops are closed until at least 4:30 so no shopping was available. Luther was disappointed that he had not gotten any wine but luck shown on us (finally!) and we found an enotecca where he could buy some.

We bought some more food on the way home so we could cook something that night. It was pasta with cherry tomatoes, garlic, canned tuna and basil from the garden. It was quite good. They had satellite TV there so we could watch CNN news. Also they had free internet and free DSL phone. Very plugged in!