The next morning it was on to visit the Selinunte Archeological Park. It’s Europe’s largest Archeological Park. The views of the Mediterranean Sea are fantastic as well. We visited the east temples; Temple E (Temple of Hera), Temple G, and Temple F. These temples are easy to walk to and then make your way over to the museum. In the museum are some of the artifacts that have been found on the site. From the museum you can choose to buy a ticket for the golf cart ride or to walk to the Acropolis and village ruins. We again opted for the transportation. It just allows you to be able to explore more of the site without having to walk a couple of km’s just trying to reach the next area.
It is just so hard to grasp how large these temples were and how they managed to move those huge stones from the rock quarry 11km’s away. They say that these temples were mostly destroyed in 409BC by a Carthagunian army. The city was later abandoned in 250BC and earthquakes managed to topple many of the remaining temples.
We then drove in to Agrigento. It’s a city set in a hill top with very confusing streets. It’s difficult to tell what street you’re on as there’s hairpin turns and streets where you can choose the upper or lower street. But we finally found the little B&B, Oneira Rooms. Our host was very sweet and spoke French and Italian and a little English. But we all managed to understand each other. She recommended some restaurants. We chose to go to Sal 8. It was excellent. We had a great meal there and we thought the price was very reasonable for a nice restaurant. We walked around for a bit and called it a night.
The next morning, we decided to check-out some of the sights our host had recommended in town. It was a hot sweaty walk up a number of steps and we were detoured by construction a few times. But we finally made it to the Cathedral and the Santa Maria dei Greci Church. It was a cathedral built in 1200 on the remains of an ancient Doric temple. It was interesting and parts of the floor are glass so you can view the catacombs beneath.
We got back to the car to drive to the Valley of the Temples located in Agrigento . Wouldn’t you know, we had the worst time finding the entrance to the park. We had traffic jams, closed entrances and it really wasn’t clear where to park. But we finally found the parking area. It was a parking lot that uses the Easy Park app. So that part was easy as the camera recognized the car license plate and opened the gate. We ended up at the gate 5 entrance which is at the lower end of the park. So, for €3 a person you can take a taxi to the top. Then you can just walk downhill through the park to visit each of the 5 temples.
We then had about a 2.5 hour drive to our next stop Ragusa. It was a crazy drive. There were a number of hair pin turns as we kept climbing up. We made it to our stop for the night, the San Giorgio Palace Hotel. On the street below the hotel, there was free street parking. We were able to find a space and walked up to the entrance. To get to reception you walk through the tunnel and take the elevator up. The hotel is built into the side of a hill and the hotel had a really unique design.
We went to explore a little of the historic downtown. We were able to find a nice little place for dinner and walked around for a bit. We decided to explore more of historic center the next morning as we only had the one night.
Then we drove in to Modica. Modica is known for its Baroque buildings and its chocolate making. We found free parking and went to the tourist info to find the best way to visit the town.
Again this town is set on a hilltop and has narrow roads and a number of stairs. The lady recommended the golf cart tour. So, for €8 each, we had an hour tour of some of the main highlights of the city. We only had a couple of hours to explore and this made it so nice to have someone just take us around. The driver really didn’t speak much English, but he took us around and pointed out certain things. We would have never seen as much as we did without the golf cart. He also took us to a church that had been used as a jail at one point in history. The man in charge of the church provided some explanations using Google translate. It was great that he did that so, we could really understand the significance of the church.
We got done with the golf cart and walked down the street to get lunch. After we walked into a couple of chocolate shops for samples. Their chocolate is made differently than what we are used to. The cocoa is mixed with unrefined sugar and traditional spices at low temperatures. This give the chocolate a very grainy texture. The process is known as “cold chocolate”.
