Lori and Troy do Europe 2025

Today is 68 and overcast with a chance of rain. We have a scheduled tour at 11am to visit the Valley of the Temples. This is about a 10 min drive from our apartment. Parking is hard to find around our apartment but we have a spot right in front of our building in a prime spot. We contemplated taking an Uber just so we wouldn’t lose that spot. The price was going to be about $30 each way so we opted to drive and lose our premium spot.

We were hungry so we left a little early. We were hoping to eat at one of the restaurants next to the tour area. We arrived 45 minutes early and were starving. We parked the car and there was no food to be found. Not a good situation because this is a large walking tour. We waited for the guide to arrive. Elizabeth Garcia arrived and started the tour. She is originally from Mexico and married a Sicilian man. She told us about the Sicilian culture that she was cast into. Every Sunday is dinner at Grandma’s house. The Grandmother names her children and various other cultures that she was not accustomed to. Everything was based heavily on family and the grandmother. It was really humorous to hear her talk about it.

The temples are not in a valley but more of a smaller mountain range that is below the city of Agrigento. Both have views of the Mediterranean Sea. She lead us around several temples that were originally build by the Greeks. They date back to as early as the 6th century BC. The Greeks built several temples to their Greek gods. It was amazing to see the size of the stone columns that were erected. In Greece they build similar temples out of local materials like Marble. Here is Siclily they did not have access to Marble so they used a type of sandstone. They built a round frame around each block and then rolled the block down the mountain the temple site. The columns were built of several sections with a wooden spline in the middle to hold them together. The large blocks on top were hoisted using a block and tackle system. Then they covered it with a marble dust composition to give it a marble look. The temples were later destroyed by Christians and repurposed in the Marina to build a pier. Earthquakes also added to the destruction of the temples from Mt Etna. Many of them are still in ruins but in the 19th century they were partially restored and are now a protected site.

There are still ongoing archeological discoveries to this day. The largest of them was the temple of Zeus. It was 98ft high and because the pillars could not hold the weight of the roof the erected these 62ft tall Talamon statues between each column for added strength. They recently re-assembled one this year (2025) and have it in display. There are plans to re-assemble 4 more around the ruins of the temple. They are not able to find all of the pieces but were able to simulate some of the pieces until they are located.

She took us through an old cemetery area where tombs were carved into the side of the rocks and elevated for the rich. The poor were buried in shallow tombs lower on the hill. Go figure! She also spoke about the heavy Mafia influence in Sicily. She told us of a time in the late 80’s and early 90’s where there would be a guy standing at the temple parking lot collecting money to protect your car from being stolen. She said that she questioned the man and told him that she already paid for parking when she entered the lot. The guy responded that she paid for a space, he was there to make sure it was not going to be stolen. She decided to leave that day and come back on a different day. The Mafia was partially taken down in the early 1990’s by the Italian police and she said that things are better but there is still a mafia presence. She showed us an area of metal carved markers with individual names on them. This represented people that died standing up to corruption, the mafia and similar. It was really interesting to hear and a little scary at the same time.

The whole tour took a little over 2 hours. Elizabeth was very informative and fun to listen to. We were so involved in listening that we didn’t realize how far we walked. We also didn’t realize that we were walking downhill the whole time. We surely figured that out on the way back. We were amazed looking back up that hill where our car was parked. They do offer a shuttle service for 4 euros but we conditioned ourselves pretty well this trip and thought it was just another days walk. A couple of breaks and about 40 minutes later we arrived at our car. Now we were running on fumes. We needed food and fast. Lori found a place that was about 5 min away with really good reviews. She started naming off Swordfish and excellent sauce with pasta so we headed there. It was pretty busy which is a good sign. We found a seat and ordered the Swordfish, pasta with sauce and a greek salad. The salad was pretty good but not like the greek salad that we were used to. It was more of a sauce with onion, egg plant, celery and something else over lettuce. I thought it was pretty good, Lori was not impressed. The Swordfish arrived and had a fishy smell which I do not like my meals smelling like fish. I ate it but it was just ok. Lori had about 5 bites of her meal and did not finish so I know what that means. Thumbs down!

We headed back to the apartment to chill out after that walk. I took a short nap, (5-10 min) as Lori watched about 3 episodes of House on Netflix. It was about 7pm now and we figured that we better get some eggs and fixings for breakfast. We were sure that we didn’t want to look for food in the morning. There is a small market right outside of the entrance to our building. I made it clear that I didn’t want this to turn into an expedition. Lori agreed as we were tired from the earlier tour. We got dressed and headed down stairs. Of course the place is closed. How do these people stay in business and where do they store all of the displayed food when they are closed? Defeated we decided to walk a block in both direction to see if there was another store. There was a live band playing at a bar about a block from our building. They had some heavy duty amps because we could hear them in our apartment with the windows closed the night before. I’m surprised that there were not complaints. Or maybe there were because they quit at 10pm. This was a bunch of young guys trying to sing American songs with an Italian accent. I kinda liked it but it was so loud that you could not stand closer than 2 blocks away without plugging your ears. The buildings added to reverberation of the sound. This bar was the only place that was open.

We looked at each other decided to venture a little farther. It was either tonight or tomorrow morning. We were already out so we opted for the present. We also decided to extend our stay one more night so we needed cash to pay the landlord. $65 euro for 1 additional night! What a bargain! We have been trying to use our credit cards as much as possible and were low on cash so we needed to hit an ATM as well. Lori looked upon the closest one which was back up the hill into the city.

The landlord had recommended a safer route for us when we checked in but we opted for the more dangerous route the first night. This time we chose the more lit up route which was a very high stairwell. We made the climb into town and found an ATM. There was a very small store about a block away from that. We purchased eggs, bananas, pineapple juice, wine, cookies, a large drinkable yogurt and a large still water. This all came to $18 euro. Unbelievable! At first Lori thought he said $80 Euro so she went from mad to really happy.

We walked back very happy with our haul. It was a nice walk because it was downhill for a change. Once at the apartment Lori noticed a stain on my shorts. It was on the backside right in the middle. No, it was not that! I must have sat in something on one of our rest breaks while touring the temples. A basic sniff test verified this. I started wondering what other tourists may have thought about this familiar looking stain. Fortunately we didn’t know or befriend any of the tourists in our group. These are a pair of my favorite shorts so I immediately washed them out in the sink with some soap and water. It appears that I was able to remove the stain so I hung the shorts on a hanger initially to dry. Then I remembered all of the laundry hanging in the alleyways when we tour cities. I looked out our patio and found a clothes line. Perfetto! I found some clothes pins and hung the shorts on the line to dry. About 30 min later it started to rain so I went to the bring in my now clean shorts and they were gone! I frantically looked below us in the alley to see if I could locate them. We are on the 6th floor so they should be right below us. I visually searched and then realized that Lori told me not to hang them there. I figured that maybe she brought them in already. When I asked her, she responded in an unfavorable tone, I told you not to hang those there. A heated discussion ensued as I questioned why there was a clothes line if you can’t hang clothes on it. Her response was that I needed to use a lot of clothes pins. Shouldn’t 2 be enough? Apparently not because they were gone. I could only scan the area with lights from buildings so tomorrow I will have to venture down there to look for them. Hopefully I will not find a vagrant sporting a nice, clean pair of light blue shorts during my search. It could get ugly!

We called it a night and all I could think about all night was where they could be. I guess I will find out tomorrow, maybe.