Italy Travel And Hotel Guide

In 581 BC colonists from nearby Gela and from Rhodes founded the city of Akragas between the rivers of Hypsas and Akragas. They surrounded it with a mighty wall, formed in part by a higher ridge on which stood the acropolis (and, today, the modern town). The southern limit of the ancient city was a second, lower ridge and it was here, in the so-called “Valley of the Temples”, that the city architects erected their unnameable buildings during the fifth century BC. A road winds down from the modern city to the VALLE DEI TEMPLI , buses dropping you at a car park between the two separate sections of archeological remains (the orient and western zones), and then the museum . The orient zone is unenclosed and is at its crowd-free best in primeval morning or late evening. A path climbs up to the oldest of Akragas’s temples, the Tempio di Ercole (Hercules). Probably begun in the last decades of the sixth century BC, nine of the original 38 columns have been re-erected, everything else scattered around like a inactivity jigsaw puzzle. Retrace your steps back to the path which leads to the glorious Tempio della Concordia , dated to around 430 BC: perfectly preserved and beautifully sited, with fine views to the city and the sea, the tawny stone lending the structure warmth and strength. That it’s still so complete is explained by its conversion (in the sixth century AD) to a Christian church. Restored to its (more or less) original layout in the eighteenth century, it’s kept its lines and slightly tapering columns, although it’s fenced off to keep the crowds at bay. The path continues, following the line of the ancient city walls, to the Tempio di Giunone (or Hera), an engaging half-ruin standing at the very edge of the ridge. The patches of red visible here and there on the masonry denote fire damage, probably from the profit of Akragas by the Carthaginians in 406 BC.

The western zone (daily 8.30am-1hr before sunset; L4000/¬2.07), back along the path and beyond the car park, is less impressive, a vast tangle of stone and fallen masonry from a variety of temples. Most notable is the mammoth construction that was the Tempio di Giove , or Temple of Olympian Zeus. The largest Doric temple ever known, it was never completed, left in ruins by the Carthaginians and further dilapidated by earthquakes. Still, the stereobate remains, while on the ground, grappling to the sky, lies an eight-metre-high telamone : a supporting column sculpted as a male figure, arms raised and bent to bear the temple’s weight. Other scattered remains litter the area, including the so-called Tempio dei Dioscuri (Castor and Pollux), rebuilt in 1832 and actually prefabricated up of unrelated pieces from the confused rubble on the ground.

Via dei Templi leads back to the town from the car park via the excellent Museo Nazionale Archeologico (daily 9am-1pm, plus Wed-Sat 3.30-5.30pm; L8000/¬4.13) - the bus passes by outside. The extraordinarily rich collection is devoted to finds from the city and the surrounding area; best displays are the cases of vases (sixth to third century BC) and a reassembled telamone stacked against one wall. Nip over the road on the way out for the Hellenistic-Roman quarter (daily 9am-1hr before sunset; free), which contains lines of houses, inhabited intermittently until the fifth century AD, many with mosaic designs still discernible.

Tags: acropolis, akragas, ancient city walls, car park, carthaginians, eastern zone, eighteenth century, fifth century, fire damage, gela, hera, jigsaw puzzle, late evening, sacred buildings, sixth century, tawny stone, tempio della concordia, valle dei templi, valley of the temples, western zone