At the train station in Naples, we found the airport bus and were off to the airport. Security is easy, you scan your boarding pass and that gets you into the security area, you don’t have to remove shoes, you don’t have to take the laptop out and there are no ridiculous body scanners. A security guy then re-scans the boarding pass and has a look at your passport, then through the metal detector you go and that is it. The departures section of the airport is really nice.
Once again, everybody goes outside, boards a bus and the bus transports the passengers to the air plane which is sitting out on the tarmac. It was pouring rain in Naples and quite windy. The first time in the history of flying, our luggage was at the baggage carousel in Palermo airport before we were. Then we headed outside and found a shuttle to the car rental place and we got our car, a tiny Fiat 500 which is perfect for the roads we will have to negotiate here.
Okay readers, here we go. There are more archaic Greek temples in Sicily than in any other part of the ancient Greek world, so you know what is in store. The magnificent temple at Segesta was built by the Elymians, who were already inhabiting the western part of Sicily when the Greeks arrived in 8th century BC. The Elymians seemed to be declaring a cultural association with Greek heritage, it is said that the Elymians considered themselves to be fugitive Trojans but that is disputed among scholars and is unlikely. The Elymians were constantly at war with Selinus, another city with numerous Greek temples.
The temple was never finished but is wonderfully preserved. It sits on a hill and faced the city of Segesta with Mt Bernardo in the background. The view from the temple is toward a valley and it sits on the edge of a deep ravine.
Even though the wind was unreal, we had to stop at Segesta, as it was on our way to our apartment which is in the south of Sicily in Sciacca (pronounced Shak-ah). Recall that the Greeks were very particular about siting their temples, well, the temple at Segesta is in the most breath-taking site imaginable. Its place in the landscape is only rivaled by the Parthenon in Athens which sits on the Acropolis.
After we got our tickets, the bus driver came up and asked us if we wanted to get on the bus to go up the large hill to the Greek theatre, we said no, we would walk up. He said, it is 2 km! We said that was okay, we would walk up. So we did, in a gale force wind. Our timing was pretty good as it started to rain just after we visited the theatre.
Segesta Late 5th Century BC
What is missing from these columns? This is an incomplete archaic Doric temple.
The squares on the stylobate are called bosses, they are used to shift the stone blocks and are normally removed after construction is complete.
A few km up the hill is the old Greek city and this spectacular Greek theatre, mid 3rd century BC.
Sicily has amazing bridges, rather than dropping down to drive through a valley, the road stays up top.
We are staying in the southwest of Sicily. A supermarket was a short walk away so we headed over there to get some groceries as it is so handy and we are wiped-out from a long day. When you shop for vegetables, you wear plastic gloves to handle the food, then you bag it and weigh it yourself. You punch in the picture of the vegetable and it prints out a price sticker which you affix to the bag. A local saw us trying to find the fennel and then helped us with every vegetable until he clued us in that the number to punch in is also written near each vegetable along with the price per kg. Fennel grows wild here, it is everywhere at Segesta.
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