Viaggio in Sicilia / 4: 17 giugno 2024 – lunedì
Our BnB (Krysos) included vouchers for breakfast on the avenue. Lucious cornetti filled with a pistachio-based cream and, of course, the requisite morning cappuccino. Then off to the Valle dei Tempi.
We parked on the lower end of the temple-studded crest then took the shuttle to the top in order to follow the temple trail in leisurely descending, stopping off along our way to pay our respects to Juno and her clan. The first temple, dedicated to the matriarch of the heavens (Giunone, Juno), is highly restored and therefore one of the most complete Sicily. The others, consequently, are less emphatic, more suggestive or evocative.
The hike down the hill was exhilarating. The solemn and sublime aura and massive dimensions of the Greek temples are awe inspiring. I was struck, however, by how much my sensitivity at 74 seemed at odds with the passion of the 19-year-old who planned his trip to Sicily in 1969 dreaming especially of the highly reconstructed Tempio di Giunone. At 74, I find greater beauty, greater kindle for both the imagination and the heart, in the rough-and-tumble graveyard of human aspirations and illusions at Selinunte. Not to diminsh Agrigento’s splendor, but somehow the Valley of the Temples seems to have followed in the path of so many sites that in 1969 kindled my appetite for adventure but in 2024 seem to need an extra dose of salt. The flavor is no longer quite as sharp. Maybe the throngs have something to do with it.
What did kindle my heart was Agrigento’s archeological museum. The quality of the items –clay figures, multitudes of Persephones (Sicily proved indeed to be Persephone’s Island!), and some of the finest craters I have ever seen– all of this was truly awe-inspiring.
We returned to our hotel where Augusta rested and I headed out for a stroll through the old town, Agrigento’s kasbah as Rick Steves and the urban hodge-podge grid both tell us. This neighborhood is an entangled web of narrow streets and alleys that wind up and down the hill. Went into the Chiesa di Santo Spirito with a sleepy Cistercian nun religiously guarding the entrance, while nodding off in the warm, late afternoon sun, and was served my first plate of Giacomo Serpotta’s flamboyant baroque sculptures. The homogeneity in greyish white stucco, the multitudinous exuberance of figures that seem to swirl, fly, fall and rise, in unending vortiginous patterns… Quintessential baroque, quintessential Sicilian. I proceeded from here to the cathedral, where I was treated (in the Museo Diocesano) to two extraordinary Roman era sarcophagi, one depicting the Phaedra myth, the subject of the tragedy we would see a few nights later in Siracusa’s Greek Theater (Euripides’s Ippolito, portatore di corona: Fedra).
After climbing the stairs to partake of the rather unremarkable view from the bell tower I wound my way down the narrow byways past Santa Maria dei Greci, closed unfortunately, then returned to the BnB to clean up and head out to dinner.
Our 20-minute drive to Andrea and Giussy’s “L’Albero Ristorante” in Porto D’Empedocle was an experience (the drive) to be forgotten, a prime example of why not to trust the GPS in ancient towns. Google sent us through a labyrinth of narrow –very narrow– and winding –very winding– alleys in the thick heart of Porto D’Empedocle’s historic district. The delectable meal at Andrea’s along with the Fina Kiké local white wine, patio beautifully adorned with lemon trees and geraniums, the fresh Sicilian night air and Andrea and Giussy’s bonhomie helped us forget the drive and love the moment.
Photo album available on Flickr at: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjBBMTH
