The valley of the temples

Last week when we were in the town of Agrigento, we didn’t have the time to stop and explore the “valley of the temples”, which is situated below the city on a plane that stretches towards the sea.

Today we made visiting the valley the main point on our agenda. After a wonderful pasta lunch in a small trattoria overlooking the plains of Agrigento, we headed back down into the valley.


We were a little worried about pushchair accessibility around the temples, but we were pleasantly surprised to find a smooth path running the entire length of the temple site.


The temples themselves looked majestic in the soft afternoon sunlight. A gentle breeze brought the faint scent of the sea across the plain. It wasn’t hard to see why the Greek settlers had chosen this site for their holy buildings, more than two and a half thousand years ago. We passed temples built to honour Zeus, Hera, Castor and Pollux, Concordia and Heracles. They say that pictures paint a thousand words, perhaps it’s best if we just let them do the talking