Rare temples of Agrigento are worth lingering over

The drive from Monreale to Agrigento is magnificent, especially at this time of year.

You spend the first 45 minutes winding through mountain passes.  Vivid yellow broom climbs up the slopes, wildflowers line the roadside.  There are a few crumbling stone farmhouses, a few stone walls, but it's mostly just wilderness.  "I can see why this island was so tough to take in The War," my less horticulturally and romantically inclined husband observed.

You're soon back within view of the sea, and the rest of the ride alternates between coastal plane and broad, inland valleys, all packed with citrus groves, vineyards, polytunnels and fields of fruit and vegetables.  If we'd needed any explanation for the luxuriance of every small vegetable stall we'd seen … here it was.

Agrigento itself comes as a bit of a shock after all this pastoral beauty.  In my head, the legendary Valley of the Temples was going to be a collection of Greek ruins in a grassy valley, surrounded by a few charming hotels, with a medieval/baroque village nearby.  Wrong!

You're welcomed to the area by the looming industrial smokestacks and commercial harbours of Porto Empedocle.  Turns out the area was a major producer of sulphur and potash and this was the busy export point for more than a century.  Ten minutes beyond you see Agrigento itself.  Not a village but a large town sprawling along the broad crest of a high hill, comprised almost entirely of horrid, post-war cement tower blocks, connected to the coast road by a modern highway viaduct spanning the valley.  On first glance, this is the last place you expect to connect with the glories of the ancient world.

But then your eyes adjust, and you see them.  Greek temples, built from golden stone, running down the ridge of another hill between modern Agrigento and the sea.  Once you spot the ancient world, the modern falls away and you are beguiled by beauty.

Most tourists use Agrigento as a pit stop … an afternoon at the temples, an overnight at a local hotel, and on to the next sight.  We decided to take our time, staying for three nights and exploring the area in a bit more depth.  That allowed us to give the temples a full day, which is really what they deserve, and have a second day for pure R&R.

Exploring the temples
There's a car park up at the top of the site, next to the Temple of Juno.  Unhelpfully not signposted from the main roundabout below; we drove around the whole site before finding our way there.  The area is clearly geared for bus tours … directions for individuals are sparse and if you want to circumnavigate the whole site you'll be hiking for about three miles, while the bus tours ferry people from point to point.

After tucking your car between trees in an olive grove (3 euro for the day; a bargain), you'll pay a reasonable 10 euro for combined entry to the ruins and the museum.  (It's less for the ruins alone, but you might as well go for the combo.)

By starting at this top entrance you get the full glory of the site at a glance.  The Greeks preferred temple sites with spectacular views, and this is no exception.  From the Temple of Juno you get a magnificent panorama of green valley, distant hills and sea, with a processional avenue leading down the ridge on which you're standing, other temples dotting the way.  The archeological park is filled with almond and olive trees, plus wildflowers and prickly pear in bloom.  The visual scar of modern Agrigento is, thankfully, screened by hills and trees.

The second temple in the line, of Concord, is one of the most complete of its type remaining anywhere in the world.  In addition to the exterior colonnade and the pediments, the interior walls are mostly intact, so you can really get a good idea of how the building worked.  This part of the site is made more spectacular by the old city walls, which the early Christians hollowed out to create tombs.  In front of the temple lies a wonderfully evocative bronze of the fallen, broken Icarus by modern German/Polish sculptor Igor Mitoraj.

From here, the temples get less impressive but still wonderfully picturesque as they devolve into groupings of columns jutting from rocky jumbles of ruins or fields of wildflowers.  Turns out there's a reason it's so picturesque.  British Army Captain Alexander Hardcastle settled here in the early 20th century, built a house in the middle of the temples and invested his family fortune into excavating and displaying the site in suitably romantic ways.  (Sadly, when the family bank collapsed in 1929 poor Hardcastle went bust and ended up dying in an insane asylum in Agrigento; not something they tell you on the board in front of his magnificent house.)

There's another main entry point at the bottom of the hill.  From here, you'll walk uphill along the public road for about a mile before getting to the museum, which comprises an old church, a modern building and the ruins of a theatre on the next hilltop over from the Temple of Juno.  One of the first things you learn in the museum is that the best of the treasure trove of pottery and artefacts unearthed from Agrigento went to the British Museum or the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, leaving less impressive bits and pieces here. There's still plenty to look at, but if you've been to either of the bigger museums, you won't find much that's new to you.

The one exception is an Atlas from Agrigento's temple of the Olympian Zeus.  You will have seen the ruins below, but there's nothing on site to explain what you're looking at, and the translated descriptions in the museum aren't that good.  It was only after getting home and spending some time researching online that I learned that Agrigento was once home to the largest Doric temple in the world.  Half way up the building, in between each Doric column, statues of Atlas held up the roof.  One of them is reconstructed inside the museum; its towering size hinting at the magnificence of this lost wonder.

From the museum, you'll need to walk (rather stumble; you'll be exhausted by this point) around the top of the archeological area on the Via Panoramica Valle dei Templi for about a mile to circle back to the car park.  As you'd expect from the name, there are stunning views along this walk.  There's also an amazing restaurant called Il Re di Girgenti, which I'll cover in a later entry on restaurants.

Other adventures around Agrigento

This is a coastline of lovely beaches, making it an ideal spot to linger for a while.  The star site along the sea is a chalky outcropping called the Scala dei Turchi.  Blindingly white terraces rise from blue and turquoise waters, brown sandy beach and black rocks in the shallows.  The colours are intense, every view magnificent.  You could easily spend a day here, but bring plenty of sunscreen; the white rocks multiply the effect of those rays.

Note that this is a very popular attraction with the natives, and there isn't much parking.  So getting here early is a must, especially on weekends or bank holidays.  It's also worth knowing that there are two car  parks.  One is much closer to the Scala, but involves a lot of steps.  Another … the first you'll encounter if you follow signs from Porto Empedocle … is a much longer walk but all along a flat beach.  There are lovely, sandy stretches on the way to the Scala, and a couple of beach bars.

Exploring in the other direction (southwest), we wandered through intensive agriculture valleys to Palma di Montechiaro.  This small town is primarily baroque in character and has a striking cathedral on a hilltop; you get magnificent views from its plaza.  We went on a bank holiday when everything was closed.  Spookily empty, it felt more like the stage set of a spaghetti western awaiting its actors than a real town.  I suspect that under normal circumstances it could have been fun to explore.

Beyond those sights you will, admittedly, run out of much to hold your interest unless you're here for a beach holiday.  But Agrigento is definitely worth more than the quick pit stop it's generally given.