#8 Vallery of Temples and the best stone street in Sicily

The main reason for our spontaneous endeavor to go to Sicily is to visit the famed Greek ruins at Agrigento. I had a photographer friend many years ago told me that the ruins in Sicily was so much nicer than those in Anthem in his opinion. I was kind of convinced after seeing his photos.
The ruins used to be ancient Greek city Akragas, famous for the luxury lifestyle of its residents. The ruins nowadays stand largely on a low ridge between the city of Agrigento and the ocean and it is the largest Greek ruins outside of Greece. We decided to stay inside the park and visited the ruins in the early morning. At night we could see the illuminated temples from our window.
The temples were dated from 5th century BC and was first destroyed by Carthaginians in 406BC then later by Christian for they viewed the temples as the worship of pagan. Nowadays, the complex has nine out of ten original temples that are still visible. The morning visit was a good idea for we managed to avoid the large crowded descended at noon and sometimes in the archaeological zone we felt we had the temples all to ourselves. The best preserved one is Temple of concord, partially because the Christians converted it to a church. The situation of these monument is truly specular with the ocean as a backdrop.

We drove further later to Palermo in order to catch the overnight ferry to Napoli, on the way we visited a curious hilltop town called Erice. There we found the most beautiful stone streets in all Italy. The town was situated on a crag like many other towns yet what set it apart is that all the houses are built with stones with natural color that gives the town a very pleasant aesthetic. The same stones were used to pave all the tiny roads intersecting the town. We spent a lot of time walking on these poetic pavements, playing with our own shadows.