Today I went to the Valley of the Temples in Agrigento. The Valley of Temples are, as you might have guessed, a few temples. It took a long time for me to get there from Giardini-Naxos. When we arrived, my friend and I parked our car and went to get a taxi to drive us up the hill, then we would walk down. We arrived at the top and got out of the taxi to look at the first temple.
But, before I saw the temple, a tree caught my eye. The sign in front of the tree said that the tree was probably 500 years old! That is way older than me. The tree’s age startled me.
The first temple was the temple of Hera. It wasn’t close to what it would have been in the past. But, there were still many columns from the old temple. The columns would have supported the ceiling. There were big chunks of rubble from it all around. But, some were hidden cameras that would see if someone went too close. When you are at the temples, you will be able to look down at the Mediterranean Sea and the view was amazing. I highly recommend it.
The second temple was the temple of Concordia. This temple was extremely different from the first temple because it was more complete. The reason that I am saying this is because most of the columns were still intact and so was the roof. So, compared to the other temple, which had been in scraps, it was much better.
You could get fairly close to it. So, you could get a good picture or see it up close, no problem. The temples were a short walk away from each other. On some of the road, there were stone holes that were used as tombs. Since the tombs were so old, there were no bodies. I guess someone moved the bones. Near the tombs, there was a large wall. This wall would have protected the people from enemy invasions. If you look at Sicily on the map, you’d see how easy it is to access. For one thing, it is an island. And, second of all, if you accessed Italy, you could easily get to Sicily.
While I was walking to the final temple, I heard a bahhhh. I turned around and saw three goats. I was surprised to see goats near the ruins. A few times though, when I said bahhh, they replied. I spent some time talking to the goats and then I noticed that one of them was behaving strangely. He was twisting his back. Then, I realized that he was jumping up, face up to the tree, to eat the leaves. It was crazy how an animal that was said to be a normal farm animal could do something so incredible. Their horns were humongous. They were at least two and a half times my size.
The final temple that I went to was the Temple of Zeus. I get that it is a ruin… but it was ruined. There were pieces of a large statue of Zeus, although most of them were gone.
I highly recommend going to the Valley of the Temples. You can look online to learn more about its history. So, until the next post…
The Beary Good Adventures 