Day 20 - Last nites updates - Italy saves money on traffic signs - More Greek Stuff -

One of the things that we did after our tour to the Valley of the Temples was take a nice walk around the upper town of Agiegento. For the first time since I arrived in Italy I was actually impressed by a city. The parks/piazza were clean and trimmed. The main street was shopping friendly, clean and tons of people actually spending money. I don't know what they do there, the tourist business must have an effect, but not enough to sustain what we saw last night, so there must be industry of some sort that drives the engine of the local economy.

Sunset from

 

The congested skyline of Ariegento at sunset.

Agiegento lights up the Valley of Temples at night and we had a nice view of it from our hotel. A bit run down, but it was just a place to lay our heads.

We had a terrific dinner at the Kalos Quality Restaurant. I had gnocchi with rabbit and frutti di mare fritti (Seafood sampler fried), we returned to the hotel for a better nights sleep.The restaurant was quality, if not a bit high end, recommended to Depoti by the clerk at the hotel. (I think her family runs it)

Up early for me once again, so I fired off a few emails and read the news headlines. Depoti showed up in the lounge (the wi-fi hotspot) at around 7:40 and had a cup of tea then went to find himself a sweet roll while I showered.

Got out of Agiegento before 8: and off towards Taormina on the coast near Messina where we'll catch the ferry back tomorrow morning.

But first we had to have the usual, obligatory traffic detour without any signage adventure. Less than one mile from Agiegento, Road Chiuso. Okay what now. A bit of looking at the 10 year old not detailed enough by any stretch Michelin map that I brought, found what I thought to be an alternative route to where we were to catch the Autostrade to Catania. 15 or 20 km later met right back up with the road that we were destined to be on. No detour signs, no arrows, nada. Bizzarro world.

Finally on the Autostrade we again, this time by choice, detoured to Enna, a hill town that I had read about that is know for it views and churches with a medieval castle. Looked great from afar, but upon entering town, the old town was blocked off due to a downed tree and of course, NO SIGNAGE. We got into town, found a large piazza that looked as if it was market day square with a 13th Century church and a terraced park.

Here's where the problem lies. A filthy overgrown park. Here's a pic just to show I'm not exaggerating.

Quick visit to the church, lovely inside. Nice works of art. Off to take some pics of Etna in the distance. We're done.

The church of San Tommaso from the 1500's.

The view to the south:

The view to the north and east:

That's Mt. Etna in the distant center blending in with the clouds. It was actually much more visible to the naked eye than what I was able to capture on video.

A quick fill up at 50 bucks, a sandwich and some chips, then back on the Autostrade to Taormina.

Once again despite bad directions, we found our hotel. Nothing but stairs since it's built on the side of a hill about 800 feet above the downtown area.

Taormina is a big (as in desired) tourist town. We saw Americans, Germans and Japanese/Chinese today after we arrived and headed down the hill to the main attraction, other than the sun, the Greek Amphitheater that was built in and there is some discussion either the 3rd Century BC or 2nd Century AD. They think the theater, which seats 10,000, is probably a combination of the two. Built by the Greeks, expanded by the Romans. It's carved out of solid rock so it probably took a while to finish.

First one of several churches and a nice piazza. Lots of folks out as the weather got better, Mostly sunny I'd call it. Some shopping open till three so we did a bit of souvenir hunting. Here's the Piazza.

 The Duomo built during the 13th Century,

Some of the artwork inside the Duomo:

And

The ornate main alter:

At the top of the Greek Theater looking towards Taormina. At the top of the main hill, just the left of the tree is a castle built by the Saracens around 900 AD

 

The view of the main stage with Mt. Etna in the distance. We were going to go lava surfing on Etna today, but with the clouds and snow figured it was best to stay down low since we'd forgotten the down coats. Maybe next time.

You get a feel for the size of the theater with this picture.

Looking north toward Messina. The coast line town is Letojanni.

South towards Giardini Lexos.

Great place with wonderful views. We headed down hill to the main pedestrian street for a quick bite before tackling the 500 ft climb back up to the hotel which gave Depoti's thighs and quads a good burn.

Tomorrow we'll head back to the mainland. I liked everything about Sicily with the exception of Palermo. It's very green (as you've seen) the people have been wonderful and patient with my broken Italian and Depoti's English questions. We joked this morning about coming back in ten years to see if the highway work would be done and decided that more than likely, it wouldn't.

As always, Ciao for now. I'm on the downhill side of this journey. 17 days to go 13 in Tropea and then Sorrento and Rome.