Valley of the Temples

Temple in the valley, city on the hillside – and me in between (Or: Greece in Sicily, completely unimpressed by the rest of the world)

Agrigento clings to the hill, wildly overgrown, bustling, chaotically beautiful. And then you descend – and suddenly find yourself in another world. Down below, in the Valle dei Templi, Doric columns line up like a parade: tranquil, majestic, textbook antiquity, yet real.

The Temple of Concordia seems so fresh, you almost want to ask who the architect was. Next to it: ruins, stones, time—lots of time.

Note: If Agrigento is the now, then the valley below is a “then” that decided to just move on.