A week in Sicily

Well we're coming to the end of our first week in Sicily at Tre Fontane and are about to move to the other end of the island near Catania.  Neither of us has formed an attachment to Tre Fontane despite the warmth and staying on the beachfront.  Our accommodation is spacious with good facilitities, but is to our minds lacking in some basics.  While the kitchen is good and has plenty of pans, dishes and utensils no dishwashing implements or detergent is provided and there are no kitchen knives.  Minor things, but they detract from what would otherwise be an excellent beach house.  The town itself to me in unattractive, I suppose because, like most villages here, the houses are built to the edge of the footpath (where it exists) or the carriage way and colours are drab.  As the streets are narrow and impeded by steps to the houses and parked cars we have found several streers where it is not possible to fit our Renault Clio.  Wandering through the town in the afternoon it is a bit of a ghost town with most shops closed, not that there are many of them.  The town has a revenue generating scheme charging 1 Euro per hour for all carparks on the major roads, including the 3km stretch along the beach, even though for some of it the only thing higher that a grasshopper is a sand dune.  There is a steady parade of parking officers on bicycles with hi-viz jackets passing us as they enforce the fees.

Enough of the negative. It has been good to watch the families on the beach where there is enough space for each group to have 20m of beach to themselves and soccer and volley ball games happen.  100m down the beach is an organised area with sunbeds, umbrellas and "entertainment"- canned music, dancing in the sand lessons and a lifguard.  The reat of the 4km is free for the rest of us.

While we've been here we have enjoyed warm weather, a great family beach and peace and quiet.. We made one excursion to Selinunte where there are the remains of a large Greek town including many temples, one of which has been re-erected, while the other are like pi,e of giant lego blocks.  The largest of the temples is said to be the second largest uncovered to date and had a double row of columns around the perimeter and a 3 storey courtyard in the centre.  The quarry for the stones used is located several kilometres away and still contains column sections that had not been completed.  The method of transport explains why circular columns were so popular as a support as the sections could be cut out of the rock as cylinders, broken free, then rolled using horses pulling on ropes wrapped around the cylinders.  Square blocks would require rollers or wheels to move them.  Not that there was a lack of enormous rectangular blocks lying around the temple sites. One wonders why a community would need the number of temples existing here (at least 8 big ones) until you think of the number of competing churches we see in quite small communities today.. I wonder how the then civic authorities managed to allocate the various religious orders their temple space without upsetting the others.

Tomorrow we plan a major day of antiquities while we travel the length of the island.  First the valley of the temples at Agrigenta (Dreek of course), then the Roman remains at Enna before heading to the east coast.