Arriving in Agrigento on Wednesday, I of course made a wrong turn and ended up coming in the "back door". After a few loops around town, we finally spotted a tourism "i" centre and I went in and got a map and directions to our B&B. The directions were to go directly down the main street of the Centro Storico pedestrian zone, through the dreaded "ZTL" and make a sharp turn down a steep narrow lane that made a couple of more sharp turns before arriving at the door. Now, I don't think that I have mentioned the dreaded ZTL zones before, but they are the pedestrian zones in the old town areas in Italian cities and there are steep fines (camera enforced) for driving in them without authorization.
BUT... some of them are only in effect for certain hours and it turns out I was legal to drive through this one at that time, as the i-centre guy assured me, but it was a bit disconcerting nonetheless. Got there, though, unscathed. There was no parking available on our street so I had to go around the block into the "real" town into a garage anyway, so I could have come a different way. Our B&B, La Casa di El is very nice. We have a "suite" with a separate "living room", which is really a dining room, with table and chairs and a fridge, but has great views out to the Valley of Temples and the Mediterranean. (Our bedroom has wonderful views of the old town. We are on the 11th floor, which is 6 floors above the main entrance on the 5th floor, but the hill is so steep that there are 4 more floors above the ground level on the other side of the building. Anyway, it's a really nice place (except for the rock-hard bed) and we get our very good breakfast served in our room, which is really nice.
First night we just wandered around the neighbourhood a little bit and then went for dinner at a lovely place, Ristorante Opera, on a recommendation from our great host, Alfonzo.
Thursday morning, we headed out walking to the Valley of the Temples, about a 3 Km downhill walk towards the sea. The Valle dei Templi is home to the remains of 7 ancient Greek temples, dating to the 5th century BC and some are in remarkable shape. The entire grounds are impressive and the views are breathtaking, too. Unfortunately, after our 5 Km walk through the site, we had another 3 Km back up some steep roads and steps to town.
After getting cleaned up, we decided, because we are just plain stupid, to walk, before dinner, up a whole lot more steps to check out the cathedral or "duomo", which we could see from our room Well, we found it OK, but we needn't have bothered. The view from our room was the best view we were going to get. The whole thing is under construction, covered in scaffolding, and you can't even get around to the front of it to see the scaffolding, because access is blocked off. And the inside is under restoration, too, so not worth paying 4 euros to see. We did find a road to walk back down at least. Then went for dinner and each had veal scallopini dishes--hadn't seen any since we have been in Italy and it is one of my favourites. The weather has been quite cool since we got here and the wind has been howling at times--opening the windows in both rooms of our place is not a good idea!--but we did sit outside in a little laneway (well steps actually).
Friday, after our lovely breakfast, we got the car out of the lot and headed out to see the "Turkish Steps", the Scalla dei Turchi, a really amazing rock (marl) formation along the cliffs above the sea, about a 30 minute drive away. Really an amazing site. And there weren't TOO many people there at this time of year (You need a few to give the photos scale anyway). Then, after wandering over the "steps" for a while, we climbed back up to where we had parked the car at the top of the cliff to get the panoramic view from the top--we really are gluttons for punishment with the stairs.
Then we headed of to San Leone, a beach town a little closer to Agrigento, and had a nice meat and cheese board for lunch and then went and relaxed on the beach for a while. The beach, of course was pretty empty--way too cold for locals to be there, it was about 25C-- and past the normal "closing" date for beach activities in Sicily of Sept. 15. But it was very pleasant and the water, of course, is still quite warm. Then back to our B&B to clean up and sit and write this blog.
2025-02-14