6/18 -- Valley of the Temples, Drive to An Agritoursimo Hotel

Our first stop was Agrigento, a former Greek colony of up to 300,000 people. The main reason for stopping is the ridge line over the valley with the remains of several Greek temples and other ancient structures.  The city of Agrigento was moved in the Byzantine era to higher hills further from the coast.

Carmelina, our local guide, was born in New Jersey, but moved here as a child, so she was very understandable. She showed us photos of how the columns were quarried -- a circle was drawn on the rock and then the slave dug  out around the circle to form a drum. Five drums made up each column. They were built to taper to give the appearance of being taller. The top and bottom of each drum had a hole and lead was used to join them together, sort of like many Ikea products join tall columns today. Carmelina also had a book with overlays to show what we can see now and how things would have  looked when they were new. There is no marble in the area, so the temples were built of sandstone and coated with a marble stucco to make them look like marble. 

The first temple we saw was the Temple of Hera (later Juno when the Romans took over) which has a number of columns still standing.

Temple of Hera above and following 2 photos

This is the exterior alter where public sacrifices were done.

500 year old olive tree

On our way to  the next temple, we walked past the old stone defensive walls that were created by quarrying out the stone where we walked. In the Byzantine era, with the Arabs further up the hill, the  walls were hollowed out into arched spaces that were used for burials. There was also a more common type of Necropolis further on.

Defensive wall

The arches were cut later for graves.

Two marble statues found elsewhere. It is typical for heads and
arms to be removed for new rulers -- sort of like photoshop.

The Temple of Concordia or Peace is the most intact of the temples because in the 5th century AD, it was converted into a Christian church by adding walls between the columns and removing the original statues. It was used for 1700 years. After it was abandoned, an Englishman named Falcone saw the value of it, bought it, and had it restored to as much of its original glory as possible. For a long time, no one had a clue who this temple was dedicated to, but finally some scrap of stone was found documenting Concordia.  It is the most intact of the temples because in the 5th century AD, it was converted into a Christian church by adding walls between the columns and removing the original statues. It was usedfor 1700 years. After it was abandoned, an Englishman named Falcone saw the value of it, bought it, and had it restored to as much of its original glory as possible.

Above and below, view of the Temple of Concordia

A Polish artist created this rendition of Icarus, fallen from the sky.

A girgentana goat, nearly extinct, probably brought by the Arabs.
They have unique spiral horns on both sexes. This young one
will be all white at maturity.

Necropolis

Above and below: The Temple of Hercules

 The last temple had been dedicated to Zeus and was all but rubble. Its construction was unusual because walls were built between the columns and the tops of the walls featured three versions of giants supporting the roof. Zeus had defeated the giants and condemned them to holding the sky up. A collapsed giant has been found, but doesn't look like much any more.

Remains of the Temple of Zeus

Rendering of what it used to look like

Above: Rendering of a fallen giant. Below: w hat you see today.

Looking back at the Temple of Concordia and Agrigento

Finally, it was time for  lunch and we went to a local person's home because of his unusual history. The food was wonderful, the pasta was the best we have had here, and the wine was good, especially considering it came in 2 liter plastic bottles. After lunch, we went down to Marcello's workshop, which featured a small collection of elaborate carts built by his father. He and his son also participated, but the cart-building business died out, so he has a different job. He told us the carts were typically built by 5 people: 2 to carve, 1 to do the iron work, 1 to put all the parts together, and 1 to paint. When the cart painting business died, the painters moved up to restore frescos and similar work, so they were really competent at what they did. The carts were built to size for the beast pulling them and perfected balanced so the weight of the cart only had to be pulled, not supported. Marcello's father was unique because he could do everything but the painting. He had been an orphan and needed  to find a trade by the time he was 14, and became very successful.

Marcello

Marcello deomstrating the balance of the carts

Demonstrating the cart use

Decorative iron work

Decorative woodwork

Old cart -- a plainer one

Jim demonstrates simple woodworking. By
sitting on a board that extends out the back,
he creates the tension needed to hold the
wood in place.

Working with an anvil

Picture of Marcello's father doing each job.

Decorative toy cart

We spent the next hour and a half in siesta on the bus driving to our agritourismo hotel. I had expected something smaller, but this is quite an elaborate hotel with hot tubs (but they were cold), and walking paths, and lots of rooms.

There were lots of stork nests on the top of
electric poles. An old German bunker in
the background. We saw lots of them.

View from our balcony. We had a heavy rainstorm later.

Above and below: the older areas of the hotel. Some of our
group was here, while others, including us, were in the
newer section where we took the balcony photo.