Valley of the temples to Taormina

 We left Palermo this morning and headed for Agrigento, the Valley of The Temples.  This area has been occupied since Greek times, first by Greeks, then by Carthaginians, then by Romans, early Christians, Arabs, Normans, etc.  There is a well preserved Temple of Concord, plus temples of Hercules and Juno.

 

We took a break for another “light lunch”, then continued on to Piazza Armenia, to see the Roman villa of Casale.  This is a huge villa of 47 rooms.  Unfortunately it is being repaired so we could only see five of them.  The rooms we did see were amazing for their mosaic floors, featuring, among other things, the Labors of Hercules and a Roman circus. 

Our destination for the evening was Taormina, which we didn’t reach until after 7:00.  The city is perched high on a rock overlooking the Mediterranean.  From the terrace of our hotel room we can see Mt. Etna (still spewing ash), the twinkling lights of the cities along the coastline, and the moon shining on the Mediterranean.  No bugs!  What a romantic spot.  Not exactly wasted on us old people.  I suspect if we were 20 years younger we would be spending more time in the room and less time on the terrace!

Once again the drive was beautiful.

We passed wind farms and a solar farm.

Here's a view of the Temple of Concord - one of the better preserved temples in the valley.

The temple of Juno was destroyed and much of it carted off for other building projects by the Normans.

The Greeks had built in the valley and carved the limestone to form defensive walls.  When the Romans came in about 280 they moved the city to the hill and used the old Greek walls to form burial vaults!

 Here is the temple of Hercules.  It is unusual for the main temple to be dedicated to Hercules.  This temple was rededicated as a Christian church in 283 and so was modified and left intact.  It served as the church used for burials (which were then done in vaults in the surrounding Greek city walls!).

The drive to the Roman mansion was through some rather dry areas.

This huge villa had been buried in a massive mud slide about the year 89 BC.  As a result the subsequent invaders did not know about the buried mansion and left it intact.  The mansion had 47 rather large rooms with a swimming pool, guest rooms, etc.  We only got to see 5 rooms since the rest were under restoration at the moment.  The mosaics on the floors were great!  Here are the girls from the "bikini room."

Here is a mosaic from the hallway.  You can see it depicts the capture and transport of African animals by the Romans.

As we drove to our final destination we passed the volcano.  It is erupting again!

The view of the coastline from our balcony!