From Palermo, the road took us next towards Agrigento. On the way, we just had to stop at a little village called Corleone. The place is well-known as the birthplace of several well-known mafia bosses, including one rather famous fictional one known as Vito Corleone (enough said!). The village is also known for its numerous churches, and its historical heritage. We saw more of those than mafia bosses (fortunately, I suppose?), but I suppose more than anything else, Corleone still feels very much Sicilian (one could easily imagine now the place could make the most of its “Godfather connection” – thankfully that hasn’t happened yet).
After our brief “organized crime detour , we continued towards Agrigento, taking in some pretty impressive mountain scenery (we were surprised how green Sicily is – we were expecting much more arid landscapes). Agrigento is fore and foremost known for its collection of Greek temples located in the valley of temples. Due to our somewhat tight schedule, we headed there straight away, before going to our hotel, even. The valley is actually a somewhat confusing name, since the temples are actually located on a ridge, rather than in a valley.
Like Segesta, the Greeks chose a pretty stunning setting for their temples here at Agrigento, overlooking as they do the surrounding lush scenery, and the sea. I think I was even more awestruck by the temples here at Agrigento, than at Segesta. The most impressive temples are the Temple of Juno, at one end of the valley, and the extremely well-preserved Temple of Concordia (the reason it’s so well-preserved is that it actually served as a church for some time). There is also the huge Temple of Zeus, which was apparently the largest Doric temple ever built – but very little remains of it (save for a very impressive pile of rubble). The collection of temples was nicely complemented by a sculpture exhibition.
Our hotel was located by the sea-side, and we actually had some pretty nice weather to go with the view this time. But by the time we got back to the hotel, it was almost time for dinner (which we enjoyed in a very nice restaurant indeed, not located far from the valley of the temples).
The next day, we didn’t linger for long, but drove onwards towards Selinunte in the west, where we were spending our last night in Sicily (sniff). Our first stop was at the Scala dei Turchi, at Realmonte (just west of Agrigento). It’s a rather impressive formation of white cliffs – quite reminiscent of the landscapes in Dorset, at the Jurassic coast. After admiring this rather stunning natural phenomenon, we carried on towards Selinunte.
We made another brief stop at Sciacca, a rather pleasant and peaceful town pretty much slam-bang between Agrigento and Selinunte. We really liked the place, it had a quite calm feel to it (nice change after Palermo), and a leisurely pace of life. So very Italian… I spotted a nice barber shop with an old barber chatting to his old mates, and decided it was the perfect place to get my hair cut, and practice my Italian. And I was not to be disappointed, not only did I get a cheap haircut, I also did get to practice my Italian and even got a slight insight into local politics ;-) (apparently, in Sicily you have to choose between the “evil communist bureaucracy” or the “evil mafia” – I wasn’t quite sure which evil they considered the greater one).
One haircut later, we carried on towards our final destination of the day, Selinunte. Selinunte is yet another former Greek colony, and yes they have some darn impressive Greek ruins as well. And yes, they are also rather stunningly located on a hill, overlooking some great scenery and the sea. I’m running out of superlatives. So again, it was all about temples, with an acropolis to check out this time as well. I have to admit that I was more impressed by Segesta and Agrigento, though, than Selinunte (or perhaps we had simply reached our saturation point?). But still, it’s not like I’m complaining or anything.
After my obligatory quick swim in the ‘Med (the water wasn’t actually very cold at all, but the big waves put me off a little bit), we made our way to our hotel – appropriately named the temple of Hera ;). We finished the day with yet another great dinner, in a nice old town located next-doors to Selinunte (the modern parts of Selinunte isn’t very appealing). I have to say, that Sicily would be worth a week’s holiday just for the food!
And then it was time to head back to Trapani, to catch our flight back the mainland. We did have a few hours at our hands, so we decided to make a stop-over at Marsala, famous for its sweet wine. It’s a very nice little town as well, with a rather prosperous feel to it (at times, it felt almost like Northern Italy). We spent a leisurely couple of hours walking around the place, having a coffee, enjoying the sun (after a few days of very dodgy weather, the last few days had been great, thankfully) and just taking in the atmosphere.
After Marsala, we still had time to visit the Stagnone, a big, very beautiful area known for its salt works and windmills. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to properly appreciate the area, time to catch the flight and all that.
All in all, we spent a fantastic and fascinating week, and we will surely come back to Sicily. There is so much to see still, it felt like we’ve only scratched the surface…
I have quite a few trips ahead of me, so we decided to head into Nice to enjoy the sun for a bit. It’s been a while since we’ve met up with Aki and Henna, so we agreed to meet up with them for lunch at Place Garibaldi. Due to the unsuitable train schedule (or normal mode of transport when heading into Nice), we jumped on the bus instead, which took us into Nice unexpectedly quickly. 
Naim joined us later for a coffee and ice cream, and a walk around Nice. We ended up visiting the museum of photography as well (a nice little museum, which is free to boot), where we checked out a nice exhibition of “abstract photography”. Modern art is not always my cup of tea, but this exhibition was pretty cool. 
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