And so we find ourselves in the city of Agrigento, containing the Valley
of the Temples, one of the main reasons we chose Sicily in the first place.
Yes, I take pictures of random things. This is the brand of television
in our room.
That night, we had a reception on the terrace of the hotel. This is the
view of one of the temples lit up at night.
The next morning, we take a trip to the Valley of the Temples, with our
guide Claudio. As we approach, we see the Temple of Juno.
The main road leading through to the Temple of Concordia.
We start at the Temple of Juno, built around 500 BC.
Kimberly sitting on the sacrificial altar outside the temple. All of
the temple openings face east to greet the sun. Plug for Insight: they
played this perfectly, as we were the first group in the valley in the
morning.
That's the moon above the temple, but it doesn't show that well in the
picture.
A number of our group on the sacrificial altar.
Coming down the road, these are parts of the original walls around the
temples.
Inside the walls are burial crypts for individuals and families. Good
shot of Claudio. Another plug for Insight: we had great guides throughout.
Claudio is a history professor who has written three books on the area.
The Temple of Concordia, which is the second-best preserved Greek parthenon-style
temple in the world. Claudio tells us that the name is misleading, as
this is the only temple that the Byzantine Christians left standing and
turned into a Christian church; the rest were pulled down.
A three-year old statue added, representing a fallen Icharus. Claudio
doesn't like this, as Icharus fell because his wings burned, and this
statue has intact wings and other broken parts.
Around to the side, you can see the pillar configuration.
And the obligatory tourist shot.
Further down the road is the necropolis: city of the dead. These are
tombs, most of which are smaller than ours, as the people were slightly
smaller and they were buried in fetal position.
An old road, that was later used as an aqueduct, so the road grooves
are carved down deeper.
The Temple of Hercules. This is one of the most recent reconstructions,
funded in 1922 by Alexander Hardcastle.
Across the main road is the Temple of Zeus. You can't tell from this
picture, because only a small percentage of the original stone remains.
The rest was quarried and turned in to the foundations of the harbor (what
a waste!).
Across from the entrance, this is the massive sacrificial altar, on which
they were able to slaughter 450 cattle at once.
Inside the main chamber of the temple, there is a storage for the temple
treasure.
There used to be two dozen titans that held up the roof. The one on the
right is a reconstruction, stone-for-stone, of the best-preserved example
they had. The real one was moved to the Archeological Museum.