Valley Of The Temples

Last night saw the first rain since we got here but the sky was blue again by morning. Despite the lack of rain the country is quite green so presumably there was rain before we arrived. We caught the bus down to the Valley of the Temples which might more properly be called the Ridge of the Temples as it primarily occupies a prominent ridge, overlooking the ocean, but several kilometres inland.

A Telemon, or huge stone figure, reconstructed in the Temple of Zeus, with Agrigento on the hill in the background. 

Edward describes them as the most perfect of the Greek temples now existing, and inferior only to those at Athens and Paestum. He correctly mentions that the most conspicuous ruins are those of the fine temples of Concord and Juno...Standing upon a rocky elevation which presents a precipitous face to the shore, the appearance of these temples from the sea must have been beautiful in the extreme.

Temple of Concord

The Temples now are contained in a large archaeological park that is well presented and kept in a manner befitting the splendour of these remains. The sign posts are in good English and audio guides are provided for a small extra charge. One very interesting aspect is that scattered throughout the park are recreations of the various machines, cranes, sledges, rollers and tools, that were used to build the temples. At least 2,500 years old the temples were originally built by the Greeks but later co-opted by the Romans and then Christians for their own purposes and this is the main reason they survived so long.

Temple of Hercules. The pillars have been reconstructed since Edward's visit. 

Edward describes some of the ruins as being quite overthrown and while they still are to a large extent, a number were reconstructed in the late 19th, and early 20th, Centuries. We took a walk on a side path into an area that was once the main Roman residential area of the city. These days it is an olive grove with occasional building foundations but the plowed earth is just thick with Roman pottery and masonry shards.

In the centre of the park, their headquarters is the Villa Hardcastle built in the late 19th Century by a Captain Hardcastle, a retired English gentleman who fell in love with the site and was responsible for much of it's restoration and preservation. Amongst other things he successfully petitioned the government to have a number of people's country villas, that had been built throughout the ruins, knocked down. However, he then went and had his own villa built right in the middle. Gotta love those English gentlemen of old.

Like Edward, we spent the greater part of the day wandering among these silent yet eloquent memorials of by-gone greatness before catching the bus back to the main city. For tea that night we visited a small cafe that had a sign on the wall that demonstrates the possible dilemmas of using Google Translate. It read "I don't know how to serve at tables" which we assumed was the owners way of letting English speakers know they should approach the counter for service.