On the farm with Giovanni (and more Greek temples).

So, I think Sam left off in Selinunte (which I kept pronouncing as Selunite annoying Sam to no end...so of course I kept on doing it). Next we headed to Agrigento. The site in Agrigento is Sicily's shining star in terms of Greek ruins. It is impressive. It's also more traveled and more guarded than the other sites we saw so it left me cold despite it's importance in terms of ancient remains.

Before I describe the ruins though, let me take a moment to rave about the B&B we stayed in. It was located right in the middle of the archeological site. We assume the house was grandfathered property, so it was allowed to remain privately owned. We had a beautiful view of the temples from the breakfast terrace. It was also a farm of sorts. There were peacocks, ducks, geese, dogs, cats, chickens, fish, and several exotic birds. Eli was in heaven. He really honed his animal sounds on this trip.

Anyhoo, back to the ruins. Three enormous temples line a ridge near the water and have been reconstructed or partially reconstructed. The most complete one was saved to serve as a church in the middle ages. This one was the most interesting for that reason. We found out that reusing temples in their original form was fairly unusual due Christian superstitions surrounding Pagan worship and rituals. That's why some temples are fairly easy to reconstruct (unless they're looted for building materials); they've been completely abandoned throughout Christian rule .

As I said the operation at Agrigento was pretty slick, so we saw the temples and the remains of the ancient forum without lingering for long. (I, Sam, am taking over writing the post at this point. Just to keep you all informed.) Eli was in quite a mood and showing the signs of travel frustration at this point in the trip. We were glad that our next stop was at an agriturismo in rural central Sicily with only one item on the sightseeing agenda.

Let me pause at this point to say that Caroline did an awesome job planning all the places we stayed on this trip. She has become an expert of sorts at researching various types of reasonably priced lodging in Italy, and this trip was in general a tour de force of trip planning. At some point we might compile a list of the places we stayed (that we would recommend) during our time here. Let us know if you are interested. Now back to the trip.

We high-tailed it from Agrigento to Piazza Armerina, or rather four km outside of Piazza Armerina, and got to Agriturismo Savoca to find a secluded farm with horses, peacocks, pigs, sheep, a goat, and a few dogs. The weather was nice, and Eli had a blast. The son of the owner of the place, a twenty-something guy named Giovanni, took a shining to Eli right away, and the two of them had a lot of fun playing with the horses and the various tractors and farm machinery. At times Giovanni would whisk Eli away for twenty minutes or more as they explored the wonders of the working farm. Eli had a blast, and Giovanni was a highlight of our stay at this place. On our first day there we got Eli a proper nap, poked around the grounds of the agriturismo, and had a marvelous meal at their restaurant. Everything we ate was grown on their farm. For the first time in a long time we had some green vegetables that weresubtly cooked and truly delicious.

The next day we set out to see the Villa Romana which is the main attraction in these parts. No one knows whose villa it was, but the mosaics there indicate that it must have been someone ridiculously wealthy, maybe even an emperor. The mosaics are almost perfectly preserved because the villa was destroyed by a mudslide before any real damage had come to them. I can't even begin to describe the extent of these mosaics. They were huge and everywhere. Unfortunately, the site is currently undergoing lots of restoration projects which meant that the entirety of the mosaics were covered in a coating of dust from the various sorts of work on the mosaics that were going on. Nevertheless, we could see the outlines and in a few cases the brilliance of the colors. Despite Eli's numerous melt-downs as we visited this site, it stands out as one of the best Roman remains I have ever seen. Truly extraordinary.

The rest of that day was taken up with Eli's nap and another round of family farm fun with Giovanni, the horses and the rest. Caroline cooked us a great dinner that night, and we got plenty of rest for the next day's trip to Siracusa, the final leg of the trip and the topic of the next blog entry. Ciao. Enjoy the pictures.


Above: the peacocks that greeted us as the B&B in Agrigento
Below: the view at breakfast



Above : the ridge with the temples at Agrigento
Below: the Savage family at Agrigento (Eli is on Daddy's back.)


Above: the best preserved temple at Agrigento
Below: Eli and Giovanni in the tractor at the agriturismo near Piazza Armerina


Above: Eli having fun at the agriturismo.
Below: Eli and Giovanni playing with the horses.


Above: Out for a walk at the agriturismo.
Below: A worker restoring the mosaics at the Villa Romana. You could imagine what this would look like if there weren't a thick layer of dust over the floor.