We have woken to grey skies and drizzle. The road has taken us past a chimney for a ceramic factory, a thriving industry locally, and into a patchwork of farmland, including vines, and having got a little lost in Menfi, we came across a very high class vintners selling wine in a plastic bottle for 2 euros a litre!
We are heading to the ruins at Selinunte, but by the time we are close, it is pouring with rain, so we detour to Marinella di Selinunte to look at the moody sea, browse the ceramic shops and have an early lunch. Fortunately after lunch the rain had stopped.
Selinunte, named after the profuse wild parsley growing there, was at its peak in the 5C with some 30,000 inhabitants. When it’s rival Segesta requested aid from the Carthaginians, they sent an army who destroyed the city, demolished the temples and killed 16,000 people. Selinunte is in many ways unchanged since it’s sacking, with piles of rubble left abandoned. The best of the archaeological finds, including sculpted panels called metopes that decorated the temples are in the museum in Palermo, unfortunately closed for renovation indefinitely, so the nearest we could get was Wikipedia. One surprise though was that it was International Museum day, so we got in for free.
The first sight on the East hill is the Temple of Hera, reconstructed in the 1950s. We were able to walk inside it and get a feel for the size of the place.
Behind are remains of a couple more temples, with rubble everywhere, interestingly some pieces show grooves that would have been used in construction to lock stones together.
We walked across the valley to the acropolis where there are remains of three temples, one of which had 17 columns re-erected in the 1920s and is excitingly called Temple C, residential buildings and a row of shops, showing that temples and everyday life were side by side.
Not being any kind of expert on Greek architecture, I got more from taking pictures of the rubble with the flowers growing through …
During the walk back, we met a very enterprising chap called Filippo who was selling delicious lemon granita from his mobile gelateria and promised to give him a mention.
We continued to a Tenuta Venezia, a farm on the outskirts of Castelvetrano for the night, where our room overlooks an orange orchard, and there are peacocks, puppies, geese and ponies.
Whether it was in sympathy for the grey day or not, by chance both our lunch and dinner were at Ristorante Pierrot, albeit 10kms apart. I watched tonight as they scraped some hot embers from the pizza oven and piled them under a grill to cook my involtini or little meat rolls with a herby stuffing, delicious … as was Chris’s pizza, and as for breakfast, it was a feast fit for a king!
Moving on …
We stopped briefly at the ruins at Eraclea Minoa, enjoying the view out to sea more than the site as very little was uncovered or explained except a theatre which was covered to prevent further weathering.
Today we drove from the north coast to the south coast. We started on a minor road, most of which have the odd broken edge, buckle or pothole …
As we left Pettralia Sottana, we got a great view of the town.
Greeks, Phoenicians, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans and the Spanish …. they have all spent time in Sicily and left their mark on the architecture, customs, food and language and here we are in Palermo, gateway to the melting pot, ready to explore.
Unfortunately, as Chris went to get his wallet for ID for the tickets, he found it missing and we suspect in the crush to enter the grounds, it found a new owner. Rather than watch the match and worry, we spent the next hour with the Carabinieri reporting our loss, then returned to the B&B to cancel the cards. We are not disheartened, they didn’t win, it was just a draw, reports Chris bravely!
Off Travelling Together 