Selinunte and Agrigento

April 23 – Marinella di Selinunte, in Camping Athena.

The wind blew wildly all night, and it was raining lightly as well when we woke. It took us about two seconds to agree that riding into a wet headwind was not the way to go, and the inhabitants of both tents settled back for more snoozing.

So, we had a late breakfast (Italians like cake for breakfast – but Special K and Cornflakes are available at exorbitant cost) of Special K, yoghurt, bananas and milk, followed by endless bread and jam for me.

Soon it was time for lunch, postcard writing and blog updating, so we came back to the same little cafe, where Phil had something sensible, I had another cannoli (or two) since yesterday's had fixed me up so nicely!

April 24 – Saccagrande (In a unit in a camping ground)

We got up to less than inspiring weather – heavy drizzle and then rain as we pulled the tent down. Camping in fine weather is sublime, but it's hard to find much good to say about camping in the wet! The weather was ironic, because we'd agreed to avoid cycling in the rain if we could help it. Anyway, we set off, cycling through the great deep puddles filling the laneways of the village.

After that it was up and down until we stopped for morning tea outside the cemetery of the hideously ugly village of Menfi. Then on through nice river valleys until we rode across the bridge into Sciacca and spied a huge supermarket far below. With 15 mins to the 1.30 closing time, we sprinted towards it, and stocked up with supplies. After a climb through the town we had lunch outside a very old church, then the GPS found us quiet little lesser roads into a pretty valley and then near the sea, with olives and wildflowers everywhere. Eventually the little roads ran out and we had to take the highway, but we whipped along at a great rate courtesy of our strong tail wind.

I stopped to buy one orange for our cous cous from a van at the side of the road, and the man plied me with oranges. 'Enough, enough', I cried, and tried to take some out of the bag, miming “Too heavy!'
“Libro, libro!” he shouted back, and threw more oranges into the bag.
I thought, I'll just give some away to the first child I see, but we cut into one there and then and it was absolutely delicious, so we chopped and ate, and chopped while Heather chatted to him. After thanking him profusely and promising to email him the pictures we'd taken, we sailed off with the extra weight of twenty oranges distributed between Phil and me. He'd told us tomorrow was a holiday and all the shops would be shut, and he also told us that just ahead was a 5 km tunnel, so we decided to go up and over via Ribera. .We did a bit more up than was required however, because I had taken the lead, and to occupy myself, counted aloud in Italian to 200. Unfortunately, I'd managed to cycle straight past both the sign to the supermarket we now needed, and the turn-off so when I finally stopped in the town and the others caught up with me they were less than impressed. A friendly local jumped into his car to lead us to another supermarket for provisions for all of tomorrow.

Then we descended again, with the valley spread below us filled with mist, and the black cloud which had hovered around all day filling the sky ominously. There was nowhere likely to free camp, but Phil spied this camp-ground which was open. We asked about the cost of camping, but the man shrewdly suggested that perhaps we'd like to see a cabin, which he could discount for us. It was clean, warm and dry, rather than wet and gritty, so we succumbed, and had a joint meal of soup and delicious cous cous with broadbeans and zucchini beside it as the rain drummed down.

25 April Camping Valle dei Tempio Agrigento


We woke up to a clearing sky, and spent a couple of hours uploading everyone's photos and emailing before setting off at about 11 on a busy road. Once we saw a small road curving beneath it, we looked for an alternative route, and got off at Siciliuna which had such an elaborate cemetery that it looked like the dead had an entire village for themselves.
Now we were on little back streets again, with the sea close by. We found a shady entrance to someone's driveway for lunch, and were joined on the other side of the fence by three of the least conscientious watch-dogs in Sicily, who charmed us out of certain tasty morsels.

The road after this was a kind of down-market Beach Road. We finished up in Porto Empedocle, with an unattractive industrial sea-front but a kind of shabby vibrancy. Once we turned away from the sea we came upon a charming old street and a well-patronised cafe. The gelati proved irresistible – there had been of course, many hills.

Agrigento was only a few kilometres further on, and we suddenly happened upon the temples as we crested a hill. The campground had l'aqua caldissimo, unlimited by the dreaded token, the tent dried off in the warm sunshine, and we had a relaxed and leisurely dinner of soup and cous cous, finished off by an unplanned visit to the nearby pastiche.

26 April – Agrigento: Camping de Valley de Tempi

Went to the supermarket first thing for breakfast supplies, then waited half an hour for the bus. By the time it arrived, we decided we'd be better to go to the temples before we went up to town. We bought a combined ticket for the temples and the museum, and after a longish walk there we spent one and a half hours getting a sense of the people then – their clothing, their artifacts, and the way the temples might have looked, particularly the enormous temple of Zeus. After lunch in the museum grounds, we walked back to the temples, picking up our audio guides. The temples were impressive, but we didn't respond to them as we did to the ones at Segesta and Selinunte. Maybe we're getting templed-out! The most awe inspiring one was the ruined Zeus– which was once upon a time 10 stories high, and had huge figures holding up its lintels.

By the time we'd finished there it was 5pm and we were feeling tired, but we caught the bus up to Agrigento old town and had a lovely time in its old, pretty streets busy with people enjoying passegiata. The church of the Greeks had a painted wooden Norman ceiling. The duomo, perched at the very top of its rabbit warren of steep, tiny streets, was closed but the view from it was fantastic.

We had dinner at a Lonely Planet rec restaurant, and had a really nice meal. We had planned to take the bus back but the buses stopped running at 9pm, not 10pm as we'd thought, so we hopped into a cab and sailed home.