Sicily bonus track: Valley of Temples, Cefalù, and Monreale

We reached the Valley of Temple of Agrigento in the late morning given that we had spent the night in Trapani (see more info about Trapani and its province by clicking here).

We parked our car in the pay parking next to the Valley entrance close to Juno Temple (East of the Valley), and we headed for the ticket office. 

This nearly 1300-hectare/ 3212-acre UNESCO World Heritage Site is especially famous for its well preserved Doric temples dedicated to Greek divinities, the finest example found anywhere in the world, outside of Greece itself. Along with Selinunte Temples and Segesta temple, it’s one of the must-see archaeological parks in Sicily (click here for more information about Selinunte and Segesta). 

Sicily, and Southern Italy, in fact once had several colonies of city-states known collectively as “Magna Graecia” (“Great Greece“) and formally belonging to ancient Greece. 

The city of Akragas (now Agrigento) was founded as a colony in the 6th Century BC and developed into a leading city of Magna Graecia during the golden age of Ancient Greece. Settlers mainly from Rhodes and Crete initially benefitted from rich lands in the region ideal for cultivating olives, grapes, and cereal. This led to the city prospering, developing into one of the most culturally advanced Greek cities in the Mediterranean region, and the construction of many temples between 510BC and 430BC along a hilltop once surrounded by vast walls.

During the visit, you will admire:

• Temple of Hera Lakinia (or Juno), dedicated to Zeus’ wife. Like that of the nearby Temple of Concordia, its name is conventional because of a wrong interpretation of a Latin inscription that aligns it with the temple of Hera, in Crotone. Placed spectacularly in the easternmost part of this magical hillside, it housed the cult of the goddess of fertility. The traces of fire, amazingly still visible in the walls of the cell, remind us of 406 B.C. when the Carthaginians destroyed this magnificent temple, almost identical to that of Concordia. Nearby, there is also a visible big altar for sacrifices (on the East side) and a section of street deeply furrowed by carts coming from the city’s “Gate III”;
• Temple of Concordia, built around the 5th century, is the best-preserved temple in the valley because they consecrated it as a Christian basilica in the 6th century AD. The name Concordia comes from a Latin inscription found near the temple itself. In front of the Temple, you can admire the statue of Icarus, donated by the Polish sculptor Igor Mitoraj. The statue represents the Fall of Icarus, who disobeyed his father Daedalus, he flew too close to the sun, burned his wings of wax and fell into the Mediterranean;
• Temple of Heracles (or Hercules), the oldest temple. Inside it kept a bronze statue of Hercules himself, which local people loved very much. The temple, destroyed by war and natural disasters, today has only eight columns left;
• Temple of Olympian Zeus (or Jupiter): built to thank Zeus on the occasion of the Agrigentines’ victory over the Carthaginians, in 480 BC, but destroyed by the Carthaginians before being completed. Here are the famous atlases, some gigantic statues with a human shape, once used as columns o pilasters;
• Temple of the Dioscuri (Castor and Pollux), the legendary twin brothers, born from the union of Jupiter and the queen of Sparta, nowadays has only four columns left and has become the symbol of Agrigento;
• Temple of Hephaestus (or Vulcano), whose ruins suggest it once was an imposing building, dates back to the fifth century. In its foundations, they found the remains of an archaic temple.
• Temple of Asclepius (God of Medicine), built far outside the city’s ancient walls, was a place of pilgrimage for the sick who asked to be healed. The words of the sick who got healing covered the walls of the temple.

Besides the temples, there are also Greek and Roman necropolises, residential areas, the tomb of Theron, an imposing pyramidal monument made of tuff stone built in memory of the fallen of the Second Punic War, and many other remains.

You can visit the archaeological site on foot, but if you are tired or can’t walk too much, there is also a tourist train shuttle service. It goes from one entrance to the other and cost 3€ one way.

Opening hours: 

Weekdays: 08.30 am–10 pm (exit by 11 pm), public holidays and pre-holidays: 08.30 am–11 pm (exit by midnight). From July 10 to September 12, 2021, the site will be open until 10 pm (weekdays) and 11 pm (Saturdays and Sundays). 

Entrance fee: 12€ p.p./ 14.10 $ p.p. (+1€/1.17$ for the site map).