Agrigento, Piazza Armerina, Caltagirone & Ragusa

10 July 2018

The day before we had driven into Cuici's Manor after seeing Segesta and Selinunte.
Oh! The morning in Cuici's Manor....
Peaceful and so nice. I wish I had booked an extra day's stay here.....

We went for a walk around the property before breakfast.

There was a strengthened cave inside the property which has an interesting history. Maybe King Minos is buried here? King Minos is said to have been buried "with his treasures in the centre of Sicily under a solitary mountain where the sun's strikes the ground at mid day!!

Breakfast was excellent..

(This is pistachio from the farm, ground and mixed with white chocolate. Tasted amazing.)

Now we were ready to leave and Ginevra forgot to take the money from us!! We had to remind her to do so!!
My husband fell so much in love with this place that he wanted to send both my girls here for a week. And Ginevra readily agreed to pick them up from the railway station.

We had a lot to see and a lot of driving to do...

We had an appointment to meet our guide at Agrigento - Ms.Laura Daniel.
We were to meet her at the parking lot near the 'Temple of Juno'. But how were we to reach there? Leaving Cuici's and going to Agrigento was worrying us so much. That was when Ginevra suggested her husband 'lead' us in his car till the site. It is 30 kms away and we were not very sure we wanted him to do that.

But they insisted and we followed him  all the way to Agrigento....all 30 kms. We would have been lost without Davide. What a great gesture.

We reached at 9.50 for our 10 am appointment and while we waited another tourist guide asked if we needed help. But we said we are waiting for Laura and within minutes Laura found us as the other lady informed her about our location. Reminded me of India!

We bought tickets to visit the Temple Valley and the Museum. It cost around Euro 13.50 per person.
And while waiting in the queue, we saw the Danish family had also come to see the ruins.

The Valley of the Temples is a large area with many different temples of Greek era dedicated to different Gods. Before we began the tour Laura gave us a brief introduction about the whole Valley. It consists of 7 temples; all in Doric style and a villa. At its peak, the city may have had as many as 300,000 inhabitants, and it was enclosed by over 12 km of fortification walls which included nine gates. It was destroyed by the Carthaginians in 406 BCE.
The temples were built in the BCE and there was a huge wall running along the seaside. Only a small piece of the wall remains now and most of the temples are in ruins.

The first temple is dedicated to Hera or Juno, the wife of Zeus and the Queen of the ancient Greek Gods.

At the very entrance is an ancient Olive tree, which has stood the test of time.

Walking up, we reached the temple of Juno / Hera. She represented the ideal woman and was goddess of marriage and the family. She hated her husband's illegitimate children but was forever faithful to her husband. Thus the symbol of fidelity and monogamy.

Laura explained that this temple was built on top of the tallest hill facing the sea with a multi purpose intent.
1.When ships came to port; they are would get awestruck.
2. Seeing such a huge temple and then a massive wall would mean wealth and huge army base.
3. Also knowledge of God's grace would stop enemy attacks.

It was in use till the Roman persecution of the pagans started.

Imagine how this place would have looked to ships sailing into the port. You can see the sea afar in the below photo.

I had taken an umbrella with me, thankfully. It was so hot! People did stare, but I thought they were envious. I was surely doing better than the Japanese family fully dressed in black.

There was some artists conclave going on in the site ; but I did not recognise any one, nor did Laura. And this year's theme was - ecstacy. Laura explained that there will be artistic installations based on this topic all through the site. I was NOT looking forward to seeing it.

Anyway, we traced our way back to see the remains of the huge wall.

The walls were very thick and so the later generations had carved into the walls to make it the final resting place of their ancestors.

This marble statue had been found on the site almost intact and was now fused together and placed here.

The new city of Agrigento is seen on the right side of the valley. No construction activity is allowed near the site.

Next stop was temple of Concordia.

And here we saw the 'art installation'...more like heard it. There were 3 large televisions playing in loop people in various stages of 'ecstacy'...lots of 'hmm's 'haaaaa's and 'aaa's. Even though I did not have my children accompanying me, I just could not make my self watch the soft porn on open display as art.

The temple of Concordia is comparitively well preserved and the UNESCO's symbol alludes to this temple's 6 column facade.

This temple was turned into a church and much modification was done. Like shifting the entrance to the backside and spaces between columns getting filled to create a nave and two aisles.

In front of this temple was this...

A modern installation from the previous year....of Icarus ...left behind by the artist. I had first thought it was part of the 'ecstacy' theme.

We walked on to see the Villa Aurea, house of rich English patron and archaeologist Mr.Alexander Hardcastle. He allocated private funds to perform excavations and massive renovation works at the nearby Greek temples and thus became bankrupt. He became insane and died in an asylum, but the Italians love the contribution he made and have preserved his house. We did not go inside.

Next we came to the Temple of Zeus and Heracles.
This is the most ancient .

You can see the remnants of plaster on this fallen column.

Now we had to cross the road to the next site. But the Italians authorities have built an overpass.

Excavation was going on at the other side.

Our guide Laura Danile was an archeologist who sadly could not pursue her career. She had studied in Greece and Turkey. She was hardly excited about her work. She had knowledge but no enthusiasm. She was going about her work to earn money. The only time I saw her excited was when she saw her colleagues digging away. After that she got more depressed.

Here was the Temple of Zeus. It was supposed to be the biggest after construction, but it never got completed. It was dedicated to Olympian Zeus to commemorate the victory in a war. Slaves were used in it's construction.

The structure was so huge that they had 'atlas' or supports in human form to hold aloft the upper floors. One is seen here. You can see how the nude figure would have stood with the back to the wall and hands stretched above his head.

This would have been the pedestal...

From here we took a buggy to the starting point.

We drove our car and followed Laura on her scooter to the Museum.
It was so nice inside the cool museum.
There was so much to see...

The official symbol of sicily!!

Remember the Atlas from the temple of Zeus...

Another one is here...

And there seems to be an argument about how the atlases were placed... on a thin pedestal or thick one or a pedestal on another pedestal...

Model of the temple.

Another photo of the original atlas...

Next stop was the sarcophagus section....

A very simple burial vault...

And intricate ones....with stories on them..

This belonged to a young boy whose death brought great grief to his father and mother.

 

This belongs to a couple....

This belongs to a young man...

That's it....Agrigento was done.

We said bye to Laura, who helped us with the sat-nav of our car. She explained it's setting up. Things got easier after that!

We had lunch at a nearby restaurant and started our journey towards Piazza Armerina.

The road was mostly empty...

And there were cows also on Italian roads!

At Piazza Armerina, we were going to see Villa Romana del Casale. It is a UNESCO site because of the mosaics...."one of the richest, largest, and varied collections of Roman mosaics in the world".

Due to the landslide and floods that covered the remains, everything is properly preserved.

While we parked our car in the parking lot and started walking towards the ticket office, we were told to not walk towards the left, but to the right. Why? Shops were on the right. Herding tourists to buy things! Just like India!

The house of the senator was amazing!

Hall of small hunting.

This is called Ambulatory...Here the long corridor depicts how exotic animals are transported for circus puposes.

Bikini room!!

At the Basilica..

Time to go to Caltagirone..

It was about 30 kms away...We were going into that town to just see one staircase....

When we left the Villa, we took a wrong turn and ended up on the wrong side of traffic, but the other drivers quickly shooed us into the right track. Then we got a bit lost and went through some really small roads, turned back and the Jinx ended. There was no more trouble about roads after that.

Once we entered the town of Caltagirone, we knew that the stairway was bang in the middle of town, but did not know if parking would be available. We parked about 3 kms away and decided to walk. But on enquiring with an Italian gentleman who spoke no English (Harish speaks poco poco Italian), we got the confidence to venture into the main roads.

Once we got into town, we realised it was very undulating and I got worried as the roads were very narrow with parking on one side. We found a spot and we got near a parking ticket vending machine. That was when we met an American lady who told us that this was not really necessary, but helped us to get a ticket anyway. We stuck it inside our car, thanked her and started walking; and the policewoman came to check if all the parked cars had paid their fees!

Caltigirone means castle of jars and is the production centre of pottery and terra cotta wares.

Look at the way the roads are...There is another road down under!!

This was the staircase we came to see!!

Look at the designing with the tiles!!

This lady was teaching model-walk to several youngsters!!

We wanted to reach Ragusa before the sun set...

Ragusa Ibla was 65 kms away...

And we were especially worried about the last part with many hairpin bends..

But we made it!

We had booked in B&B Aura and Guiseppe was just perfect for Harish...Very precise and meticulous. He would go only according to the routine and not change a single step. He explained in great detail where we could eat, what to eat, what to see and then moved on to explain all the important aspects of the room we were renting. He loving touched easy piece of furniture and rearranged all the flowers which were in order into the correct position. Then he took us to the bathroom and showed us what was where and then told us to smoke only outside in the balcony. Everything was 'precise' & 'meticulous'.

The room was excellent and soo neat. I did not feel like soiling the pure white bedsheet.

Before he left us, he asked what croissant we wanted to have for breakfast and gave us 10 choices. I wanted 2 and ordered apple & cream. 

We quickly changed and went out for dinner at Quattro Gati or 4 cats restaurant.

And there were 4 cats living there!!

Food was excellent...
(This restaurant had many dishes made with Donkey meat!!)

Thus the long day ended!!

Next day we were to explore RAGUSA!