Temples & Stairs

Tour of Valley of the Temples this morning. We arrived early and was the 2nd group in. Turns out one of the temples here became the logo for UNESCO. After walking around and seeing them, I'm pretty sure it's Concordia as it's the most complete. The temples are built on hill above today's Agrigento and you can see the coast from here. It's not the highest hill, but easy enough to defend without being too strenuous.

To be honest, I was actually more interested in the temporary exhibit throughout the park. It's called The Quantic Man, there is no Future without Memory by Gianfranco Meggiato. To quote the website:

"The monumental sculptures by the Venetian artist Gianfranco Meggiato enter into a dialog with the ruins of the ancient city of Akragas, inviting visitors to make their own observations and creating a point of contact between memory and future.

Borrowing from the theories of quantum physics, Meggiato raises questions about human existence that projects from the past into the future, in search of new ideals of beauty and hope. From the ruins of flourishing civilizations, from the temples, places of pagan spirituality, witnesses to an era of splendor, the individual of the future, the quantic man can be reborn and will be capable of interacting with the external reality in a profound way, aware of the energy and light that emanates from the individual.

The sculptures trace a path through history, science, philosophy, and art to tell the story of the stages in this evolution."

In this space of deep history, it was very fitting to dwell on the ideas and artworks he presents to have a ponder of life.

Our next stop was a quick one at the Stair of the Turks. This was not on the itinerary but one I'm glad we were able to make. I'd mentioned it to our Tour Leader in the beginning hoping we could make a quick stop, after I'd seen photos online. While initially it looked like we couldn't go, our driver was kind enough to make the stop as it's on the way. The stairs itself are currently closed so we couldn't approach, however, there's a great viewpoint where we were able to spend a few minutes. The stairs themselves are actually closer to Realmonte than Agrigento.

Lunch stop in Marsala and a planned visit to the salt marshes. Unfortunately, the effects of the recent weather are still affecting us as the paths around the marshes are muddy and closed. Unable to wander around and the weather overcast, we left fairly soon to continue to our night stop of Trapani.Read more