I was on vacation in Sicily for the first time this summer to visit Eugenio’s hometown in Comiso, located in Southern Sicily. Little did I know that a good 1.5- to 2-hour drive away lies a magnificent and massive collection of probably the biggest and most well-preserved Greek temples there are outside Athens. One fine evening, they brought me to see the famous temples.
The Valley of the Temples (Italian: Valle dei Templi) in Agrigento, Sicily boasts of an impressive number of archeological sites from the ruins of the ancient Greek city of Akragas. I’ve read that Akragas is actually one of the the main cities of what the Romans call the Magna Graecia (Greater Greece), which refers to the coastal areas of Southern Italy that were, in fact, heavily populated by the Greek settlers. A quick look in Wikipedia will say that there is an estimated 200,000 to 800,000 people living in this city around 406 BC! That’s quite a lot indeed! Well, that’s not hard to believe because this area is vast. And I mean, VAAAAAAAST! They say it’s probably the biggest archeological site in the world.
When you arrive there at the entrance where there is the parking lot, you’re not really ‘in there’ yet. The parking lot is a few kilometers downhill the farthest temple. You cannot take your car up there so you have to take the taxis from the parking lot towards the topmost temple, which will cost you 3€ per person. Click here to see the complete entrance rates which change with the season. Okay, now, here are what I saw!
Temple of Concordia
It is the largest and most well- preserved Greek Doric temple in Sicily and they say that it is one of the best preserved temples of its kind. ‘Doric’ actually refers to the Doric order which is the first style of classical
architecture, pertaining mainly to the sophisticated styles of ancient Rome and Greece. I read that it dates back to around 430 BC! It survived a lot of things, including all the bombings of the wars (I’m not sure but I think it was agreed not to bomb them because of the archeological sites), and is very much intact up to this day.
Temple of Juno (Hera Lacinia)
This temple used to look like the Concordia but was ruined by a fire wayback in the 400++ BC.
A 1000+-year-old olive tree
Amazing isn’t it? That is how a much wiser olive tree looks like. 🙂 Oh the things that it has witnessed, aplenty!
Temple of Castor and Pollux
One of the most famed temples in the area, named after the mythological twins Castor and Pollux. It is actually the symbol of Agrigento.
Temple of Hercules
This is the oldest temple in this site, and only a few columns of it remain. I’ve read that it may have been there since 480 BC!
It really overwhelmed me when I saw the temples on a beautiful moonlit night. Walking under the moonlight, admiring not just one, but, one Greek temple after another in well-lit paths lined with trees (they say almond) and stones, and knowing that you’re treading the same paths that ancient people (who lived before Christ!!!) have also walked on, is such a humbling experience. It makes you realize that you are but one tiny speck in one tiny piece of time in the universe.
Happiness.NOW 