Agrigento – An ancient city on the coast of Sicily overlooking the Valley of the Temples

After a very enjoyable and peaceful stay in Taormina, we were off to Agrigento. We left Taormina by train (from the Godfather train station) one morning and rode to Catania farther down the East Coast of Sicily. There we picked up our little (and I mean little) car and headed West. The super-cool, high-octane motor of the Lancia Ypsilon had an incredible 68 HP, 1.2 liter that blasted us from 0 to 62 in a blistering 14.5 seconds. Normally, we weren’t carrying much luggage. But on this leg we had 8 bottles of wine with us from our Etna wine tasting! So, the little car had some trouble with the hills as we drove through the majestic landscape of Sicily. We drove through the beautiful, green valleys and hills of central Sicily. Our destination: Agrigento.  Our nice, little hotel had a pretty and large garden in the back with unparalleled views of the Valley of the Temples, and all the way out to the sea. We spent our quiet evenings watching the sunset there and enjoying our Mt. Etna wines. It was mid-afternoon, but we were really hungry, so we asked at the front desk and they recommended a nearby pizza cafe. The place was awful. The pizza had the texture of a microwave pizza, the salad was some iceberg lettuce and the wine was terrible!! Criminal in Sicily, really.

Fortunately, we saw a nice looking restaurant on our walk back to the hotel and decided to make reservations for the following evening. We rested a bit after a trip to the grocery store, then had a nice glass of our Mt. Etna wine on the back patio. Jos found a cool, local pizza place for dinner in a residential neighborhood. As we entered, there was a huge party of 30+ family members having fun and celebrating something. We were seated downstairs, and as we sat down, another large group were seated next to us. Another great celebration…. looked like a birthday party for grandma!! Everyone was having so fun, including us. The waiter/owner was so nice to us and helped us order some great wine and pizza. On those nights you almost felt like a local. Except for the way the families kept looking at us wondering who we were & why we were there!

Breakfast the next morning was in the cute little hotel restaurant overlooking the garden with the view. During breakfast, we met a lovely Canadian woman who was traveling through Sicily on her own. She was dressed colorfully, was well traveled, and really nice person to have a conversation with - which we did every morning while there. We swapped travel stories, talked about home, and gave each other tips on what to do in this ancient city. The rest of the day, we explored the Valley of the Temples, known for the ruins of the ancient city of Akragas, it’s a vast archaeological site with well-preserved Greek temples. We took so many pictures and walked miles exploring all of the architecture and ruins, and also admiring the views up to the historic hilltop city of Agrigento. Many of the temples were so well preserved, you could almost see the people from thousands of years ago walking around their newly built temples.

I am so amazed by how people were able to design such magnificent structures. Unfortunately, I’m sure all of the labor was done by slaves. Many of the temples were converted over to churches when the Christians took over the area (forgot the year).

We then treated ourselves to a nice Aperol Spritz at the café and continued to admire the sites. We came back, had another nice glass of wine and headed out to the lovely restaurant across the street from the hotel. It was 8:00 pm, but we were one of the first guests to arrive. The manager was so bored that he spent almost our entire dinner watching videos on his phone. The place served some amazing wine and fresh fish. The piece of fish that I ate was the size of a dinner plate and cost less than $15 US.

Thankfully, the hotel was not crowded so we were able to get great sleep all 3 nights.

The next day, we had another nice chat with the Canadian woman over breakfast, before heading up to the old town part of Agrigento on the hill. We spent hours wandering the steep, windy cobblestone streets through narrow alleyways and up thousands of stairs. We spotted numerous cats and dogs enjoying the sun and nice temperatures — we got lucky and had really nice, relatively warm weather throughout our trip to Sicily).

We visited several amazing churches, one at the very top of the hill that was built over 1,500 years ago (or so). Like most of the other churches in Europe, the artwork, sculptures, confessional boxes, ceiling, and stained glass was over the top ornate.

As we were heading back down through the maze of streets we ran into a little, old lady out sweeping her porch. She immediately started talking to us and we finally figured out that she was trying to tell us that we needed to go over a few blocks to see a famous archaeological site in the middle of the city. This church was very small and fairly stark, as churches go in the area, but the astonishing thing was it sat on top of a pagan temple that dated way back to BC. It had a glass floor so you could see the original foundation that had been dug out over the past 100 years. It was unbelievable. After finding our way out of the old town, we did a little shopping, got back in our tiny car, and drove to the seashore. We spent the afternoon walking along the beach and putting our feet in the water. A great way to end our last day in incredible Agrigento.

We watched our last sunset with a Sicilian wine, then went out to a cool & fancy restaurant on the second story of a little building down the block from our hotel.

Of course, we were the first people there at 8:00 pm, but during our meal the restaurant filled up. We had some great people watching, including figuring out a usual custom in Italy. People or the whole table sometimes just disappear during their meal, only to return for the next course. We figured out that people like to take smoke breaks between courses. Go figure!! 😀

The next morning, we packed up our car, with fewer bottles of wine.  😀😀🍷We headed back into the hills of Sicily, now to the city of Palermo. During our drive, we continued to look for the elusive 1-euro homes. We stopped through one town on the list and were frightened by how bad it looked. Modern but run down. Not the quaint kind of town we were looking for. We made another stop, and walked around a beautiful little town in central Sicily, but were getting discouraged about 1-euro homes. The streets were so narrow, our little car barely made it through, but the locals barreled through with their SUVs. We did enjoy some wonderful coffee and watching the older men stand around in the town square chatting about, who knows? Maybe a soccer match, what chores they were avoiding, politics, or about some beautiful women who walked past them…. probably the latter. 😀

Back on the road, several construction traffic jams lay ahead, but we finally made it safely to Palermo that afternoon. Before entering the city, we stopped for lunch at a family Italian restaurant, where everyone wore (was made to wear) bibs. The comfort food was excellent.

Then we headed through crazy traffic to our Airbnb in the heart of the city. Everyone had warned us not to drive in Palermo…. they were correct. We met up with our delightful host Toti who was waiting to show us into our next home for the week. More on one of our favorite Airbnb hosts and stays in the next blog post.

Look at pictures from the bottom up.