Solunto and Palermo

Sunday 14th October

This morning, after a brief meeting with our tour leader to orient ourselves in Palermo, we got into the bus again to drive to the ancient site of Solunto. We passed through Bagheria, which used to be a village at some distance outside Palermo, but is now almost on its outskirts. It was an area which used to be popular with wealthy families for building their summer villas, so there are still some Baroque palazzi.  One in particular was quite striking, with curved facade and imposing double staircase, but I failed to get my camera ready in time as we swept past.

Solunto was originally a Carthaginian settlement, founded in the 8th century BC on a small peninsula. In the 4th century BC it was resettled in a slightly different place, set high up on the top of a hill overlooking the original site. Later still, it was Hellenized and  then it became Roman when it surrendered to Rome after the First Punic War. We were intending to look at the Hellenistic and Roman site, rather than the archaic one.

The site is wonderfully and dramatically located up a very steep hill, which gave our bus driver another opportunity to demonstrate his skill, as he negotiated the narrow hairpin bends while we oohed and aahed at the wonderful view down to the sea. After the bus dropped us, we looked briefly at the explanatory panels in the small Museum and then set off up a very steep hill to the town. The streets were paved, sometimes with large stones and sometimes with terracotta slabs, and the houses stretched up the steep hill on our left.

We walked up the street towards the Agora, looking at some of the houses on the way up.
We paused to look at an expensive house, which had a small colonnaded courtyard. Another house had a courtyard with a fountain in it and a pool to catch rainwater, which led directed to the cistern below the house. There were rooms with traces of mosaic or with frescos as well.

Some of the side streets were so steep they were in fact a street of steps - just like Hong Kong!

There was an archaic shrine part of the way up, so we assumed that the different populations might co-exist in the city.

We passed the Agora, which has a number of small recessed rooms at the back, possibly for storage. Beyond this is a huge cistern for rain water, very necessary on such a high place. The view from the top of the street was quite wonderful.

We paused to look at the Gymnasium and the theatre; the latter was quite ruined, in contrast to many of the others we have seen. Nearby was a small Odeon, and both it and the theatre were well placed to take advantage of that wonderful view.

When we descended the hill again, we went back into the museum to look at some of the finds. The museum was small, but had some beautiful things in it. One of the houses, referred to as 'The House of the Masks' contained these frescos from the Roman period.

This is meant to be a theatrical mask. The vibrant red colour is referred to as 'Pompeiian Red'.

There was a most beautiful statue, from one of the houses that also had some frescos.

The statue, from the 2nd century BC, is wonderfully well preserved. She is apparently supposed to be holding something called a 'rotulo', whatever that is. Whoever translated the label wasn't able to translate that into English, but it looks a bit like a rolled up scroll.

There were some other nice objects - like the 2nd century BC bathtub - but I'll spare you more bathroom pictures. The design did seem to have changed a bit though, in the two centuries since the last one I photographed.

The bus drove us back to Palermo for a brief walking tour. We started by driving past the harbour and were dropped beside Piazza Marina, which is a very busy and crowded street Market on a Sunday. We passed stalls full of antiques, progressing to second-hand things, including elderly radios, cassette players and even reel to reel tape recorders. I began to feel we should have a clear-out of our garage and come back with the results! These were followed by stalls of second hand books and records, and eventually we passed on to what I could only describe as mixed assorted tat.

There is a famous 150 year old fig tree at the corner of the square, which has become truly enormous. We did not have time to go into the Giardina Garibaldi in the centre of the square; but this hardly matters, as we need to go back to the area to go into the many churches we passed while walking. Wherever you look, you seem to be surrounded by Baroque buildings; many of them were shut today, but we may make some visits tomorrow afternoon or Tuesday, in time which has been designated as free for our own explorations. Many are hard to photograph on the outside because it is not possible to get far enough away from them to photograph the whole building. This is one I managed, Theatro Bellini, a lovely old building but now a Pizza shop.

I wish my photos could have done justice to the Piazza Pretoria, where there is an enormous and exuberant 16th century Florentine fountain simply smothered in gleaming white marble nude figures. It is, unfortunately, surrounded by very tall heavy railings, presumably, as my guide book says, 'to ward off excitable vandals'.

We ended up at Quattro Canti, the intersection of two main streets that date from the city's reconstruction in the 16th century. The Quattro Canti is the centre of the original medieval town, and is a Baroque crossroads.

You may notice that the corners are not really corners; they are concave. This is just one of the many 'over the top' buildings we passed as we walked around.

After our rather late lunch, we walked from here down one of the main streets, Via Maqueda, looking at the fading and sometimes decaying grandeur of the many palazzi which line it.

We also had many fascinating views up tiny crowded side streets, with balconies entirely shrouded in washing.

It took about an hour to walk back to our hotel - we should really have taken a taxi. We were back by 3.30, which was just as well, since the rain fell in loud torrents at around 4.

At 6.15, we had an interesting talk on the Mafia, and 90 minutes later went out to eat. We sat too late at the able again - I really need an early night!

Motya

Saturday 13th October, morning

We packed up and left our hotel this morning for the island of Motya, which is between other islands and the coast, and so is effectively in a lagoon.  It was a Phoenician settlement.

The Phoenicians spread from the Lebanon area all over the Mediterranean, and because they were traders who wanted friendly harbours, they founded towns. Their name comes from a Greek word that means 'purple people' because they made purple dye with murex shells. They were also good at shipbuilding and sailing and navigation and invented a 22 letter alphabet. However, they brought with them an ancient culture, very different from the Greek culture - they may have practiced human sacrifice.

The Phoenicians also founded Carthage, so the Greeks always referred to the ones in Sicily as the Carthaginians. Some time in the 8th century BC the Carthaginians settled in three places in the west of Sicily - Motya, Palermo amd Solunto. They soon controlled the west of Sicily, and being quite a militaristic society, they constantly fought the Greeks who controlled the rest of Sicily. 

The Carthaginian town of Motya was razed to the ground in 397 BC by the Syracusans under Dionysus, and was never subsequently built over. (The survivors of Motya founded Lilybaeum, which I mentioned when we visited it yesterday).

The Carthaginian settlement on Motya was discovered by Joseph Whittaker, a British businessman who was in the area trading in Marsala wine. Schliemann, who had been asked by the Italian Government to dig there, said that it was the wrong place, so Joseph Whittaker bought the island and started digging himself. By1900 had proved that it was the correct place after all.

We set off first in the bus, and drove towards the sea. We passed a huge area of salt pans, and there were still some old windmills, which were traditionally used to refine the salt.

You can see a huge pile of salt just to tne right of the photograph. There were big piles of salt all over the place, some of them covered over with tiles, presumably as a protection against the threatening rain.

We caught a small ferry out to the island, and arrived just in time for a light rain to start.

The island is not large. It was originally surrounded totally by walls, with towers and gates. We went first to the Museum, which used to be the house of Joseph Whittaker.

The main treasure of the museum, a statue of a young man, was lent to the British Museum during the Olympics, and is now in New York, so we couldn't see that. Nevertheless, there were some interesting things; there were a lot of ceramics, and some glass. There was a display of some finds from the industrial area, where the murex was made.

And there were quite a lot of stele from the sacred area.

Our guide told us that it was thought that these stele might have belonged to the human sacrifices, since ordinarily, the dead were buried in the cemeteries. They are the stele of children.

There was also this interesting mask, though I have no idea what it was for, and there are no helpful labels.

When we went outside, it was raining very heavily indeed, so we all got very wet. Some of our party, who had not brought raincoats, were obliged to wear black bin bags! The wind was also very strong, and broke my umbrella.

We crossed the island to look at the sacred area, and one of the cemeteries. Then we walked to the north gate, which was still paved and showed the marks from the cart tracks.

You may just be able to see thevfigure wearing the bin bag at the top of the slope. Just behind where I was standing to take the picture, the gate led directly to a causeway to the mainland which is slightly under water, but can still just be seen through the waves. It doesn't photograph very well though.

By this time we were all wet through and returned to the cafe for warming coffee, before catching the small ferry back to the mainland, where our bus was waiting to take us to Erice.

Erice and Segesta

Saturday 13th October in the afternoon

We left Motya and set off to Erice. The road was once again narrow and twisting, and the drive was very scenic as we climbed up to Erice, which is a walled mountain town about 750 metres above sea level. The road climbs up the mountain in a series of extremely tight bus driver testing hairpin bends. I'm far from sure I'd want to be driving a car that met our bus on the road, it took up most of the space! There would have been some wonderful panoramic views on the way up, but it was raining very hard and the countryside was shrouded in mist.

We arrived in the pouring rain, so my photos are nearly all taken through the torrents and the mists and had to be taken quickly so as to keep the camera as dry as possible.

The town was founded by the Elymians, a people who claimed descent from the Trojans. It was known to the ancient world as Eryx, and is supposed to be the place where Dedalus landed when he escaped from Crete. There has always been a shrine here, originally to Aphrodite. The town was successively taken in turn by Carthaginians, Romans, Arabs and Normans, and the last named have given it the medieval atmosphere.

We entered through the Norman gate, into a little medieval town with steep narrow streets paved in square patterns of slabs and cobbles. 

We made immediately for the Chiesa Madra (mother church), dating from 1314, though the Gothic entrance was added later, and much of the structure had to be re-built after a fire in the nineteenth century; the interior then became neo-gothic. The plaster carving is quite remarkable and very white, with mad barley-sugar twists making the ribs of the roof and looking like some mad neo-gothic wedding cake.

There are a number of interesting things to see in the church, including a tablet which lists all the processions that were organised to make some specific request. Often, it was to pray for rain. Several times, it was to pray for help after an earthquake. And a number of other times, it was to request help against the plague.

Beside the church is a stout lookout tower, from which you can apparently have wonderful views, even across to the coast of Africa on a clear day.

The current tower is Norman, but apparently there has been a lookout tower here from earliest times. Unfortunately, there was so much mist and rain it was doubtful whether you could even have seen the town from the top of the tower, so nobody bothered to climb it.

We climbed the steep main street to a restaurant where we were able to taste (and buy) cakes made with marzipan before having some lunch. We wanted to look at some of the churches, but needed to wait until the rain was a bit less torrential. Once it was slightly less heavy, we had a quick look at what had been the monastery of SS Salvatore. The building was originally a palace belonging to an important family in the 13th century, which was later donated to the Benedictine order. I fond it rather cold and depressing, but that could have been because of the heavy rain.

We slithered further down the hill and looked in at the church of San Martino. It was built by Roger the Norman - I can't find a date, so possibly 11th or 12th century. It was re-built in the 17th century. It has become the centre for wooden art works that don't have a home elsewhere. The most spectacular is the one of St Martin and the Pauper, which is 16th century.

The church itself, though very plain outside, is Baroque inside, with a wonderful painted ceiling.

We had very little time in Erice, since we were heading for Segesta, which might close early because it is no longer high season. So we hastened back to the bus which made its way down the hill again. The rain had at long last stopped, so we were able to have a good view down the hill as the bus negotiated the hairpin bends. The view certainly is spectacular

Segesta is another town founded by the Elymians. We knew we were close to it when we had a sudden view of the temple on the skyline above us, but we started at the Acropolis - the temple is on a different hill. From the main entrance to the Acropolis is a long hard climb, so the site runs a shuttle bus, and we caught that. On the acropolis are some excavated remains of a later Roman Forum, and an even later church and a Norman Fort. But the thing we had come to see was the Greek theatre, set on top of a hill with terrific views across the fields down to the bay.

You may be able to see the motorway snaking away into the distance, but it doesn't spoil the view. Unfortunately, I don't have a wide angled lens, so I can't do justice to the panorama.

From the high up on the Acropolis you get a wonderful viwe of the temple on the adjoining hill.

You can see how complete it is. Restoration started on it in the 18th century, and it has always presented a romantic sight.

After we had seen the Acropolis, we went back to the shuttle bus, and it took us back down the hill again. The we climbed up the steep hillside to the temple. Although from a distance, the temple (started in 424 BC) looks almost complete, apart from the roof, it was, in fact, never finished. The columns are not fluted, the studs that were used to move the stones around have not been removed, and there was no building inside. But it has a wonderful majestic atmosphere.

We walked right round it, and our guide pointed out that behind it is the deep gorge of the River Scamander; it is on a commanding site. As it was drawing towards evening, there was hardly anybody else there, and this must be one of the best times to see any site.

We were soon back in the bus for the drive on to Palermo, where we are to stay for 4 nights. We took a 20 minute walk from our hotel to an amazing little restaurant where we ate outside in the square, and had a very late night.

Selinunte and Marsala

Friday 12th September

In the morning, we left Agrigento on our way to Selinunte. First we drove past the temples on the ridge, giving us a wonderful and unforgettable final view. 

The national road we used was long and straight, in direct contrast to the narrow winding roads we have been using for the last few days. Our guide told us that, where possible, Italians prefer their roads to be level. So on this road there were a lot of tunnels and several viaducts. Two of the viaducts were almost two kilometres long.

First we drove close to the coast, through orange groves and fields of olives and vines. In this area, the properties are divided by fences of prickly pears, not by walls as we had noticed near Ragusa. We passed the town of Sciacca (pronounced shak-ah) which has spa baths because it is a thermal area, and has been used as a spa since earliest times. We had no time to stop for a visit though - and the town itself looked modern and quite unattractive. 

Once past the town, we turned inland for a while and noticed that the countryside around us was just a patchwork of vineyards. Apparently they were producing grapes for wine, and there is a well known wine co-operative centred in the area to which many of the farmers belong.

We turned back towards the sea again, noticing the soil was now a quite bright red and the farms were largely growing olive trees. In contrast to the olive trees we are used to seeing in TV adverts, these ones are quite short - they are heavily pruned so the olives aren't too difficult to harvest.

Soon we could see what looked like a Greek temple on the skyline in front of us. As my photo from the other side is a far better one, I'm including that, rather than the view you see as you aporoach.

This was our first view of part of Selinunte, a town founded in the middle of the 7th century BC, perched on a plateau overlooking the sea. The site is split into two parts, with temples in each. It is claimed to be the biggest archeological site in Europe, and it was a very humid day, so some of us took advantage of the little electric buggies that ferry you around. 

The eastern group of temples has the one that is most complete, since it was partly reconstructed in 1958. It is a gloriously impressive sight, with huge soaring columns standing out against the sky. The little guide we were given by the buggy driver says it was dedicated to Hera and dates to the first half of the 5th century BC. You are allowed to enter this partly reconstructed temple, going up the stairs and right through what would have been the pronaos, though you are prevented from going any further.

It is massive inside, you don't really realise the size of the columns until you are standing next to them. Because nothing of the roof remains, it provides a nesting place for the birds. It was originally decorated with panels called metopes, which are now in a museum in Palermo. 

There has been very little attempt to reconstruct the other two temples on this part of the site, so the parts just lie scattered about. The one behind the Hera temple was apparently the oldest, dating to around 550 BC. The remaining one was newer and unfinished at the time the city was destroyed when it was attacked by the Carthaginians in 409 BC, but it would have been enormous - second only to the temple of Jove at Agrigento. You can tell it was unfinished because some of the columns were un-fluted - the fluting was usually done after they had been erected.

The little buggy then took us up to the site of the Acropolis, which was the site that was first occupied. From here there are wonderful views back across to the eastern temples, as well as views down to the sea.

There were five temples on the Acropolis, and there has been a partial reconstruction  of one of them. It is the oldest in this area, dating to the 6th century BC; it stands on the highest point, looking out over the sea. It too had fine metopes now in the Palermo museum. There are 14 standing columns which were re-erected in the 1920s. 

Immediately behind the temples were little shops. Our guide says the area had been taken over by the Carthaginians because of the north African style of building, with large stones holding together the walls of infilled stones.

There were also streets of houses - witness the bath tub! (I seem to be writing about bathrooms all too frequently)

You didn't expect to sit immersed in the wzter. You sat on the top shelf, and your feet went on the shelf below - all the broken bits in my photo. The pit in front of your feet was for most of the water, which you then used to wash and rinse yourself. 

You can also see the main street with gate beyond.

There are other streets too, some paved.

After we had had an opportunity to see all this, our buggy took us back to the bus, which then took us into the town for lunch. We stopped at a place which had a terrace above a beach, and Paul went down to the beach for a walk after he had eaten. After lunch, we set off for Marsala.

We learned a bit about Marsala in our lecture last night. It was here in 1860 that Garibaldi and his redshirts began his campaign to drive out the Bourbons and bring about Italian unification. It has a much older history though. It was founded in 397 BC by the survivors of the sacking of Motya; Motya, where we will go tomorrow, the main Phoenician town in the area, was sacked by the Syracusans.

Marsala is an Arab name. The town was originally called Lilybaeum when it was founded. It finally became Roman in 241 BC, and was the place from which Rome began its attacks on Carthage. It is quite a small town, with a little harbour crammed with fishing boats. We went to the Archeological Museum to see the skeleton of a Phoenician warship which probably sank in a sea battle in 241 BC. Only parts of the stern remain, but it was originally 35 metres long and had 17 oars on each side. There are also anchors and rows of amphorae rescued from the sea. Photographs were not allowed, though I would have liked to photograph the ship.

In another room there were archeological finds from around the area, especially Roman ones including a statue dredged up from the harbour and some good Roman mosaics.

When we left the museum, we went for a wine tasting. It was mostly dessert wines, which Paul and I find have a good deal in common with cough mixture, so we did not buy anything. I did like the almond wine we tried and considered buying a bottle of that - but we are only half way through the holiday and it's a long way to carry a bottle, which might easily get broken.

We set off for our hotel, which is some way outside the town, so we had to eat in the hotel tonight, after a talk on the Phoenicians. The hotel dinner was entirely buffet, so Paul managed to find a few things he was prepared to eat.

I'm not too sure when the next post will be, as we are 4 nights in Palermo in a hotel with no Wi-Fi. I will look for an Internet Cafe. 

Near Agrigento

Thursday 11th October

We left Agrigento at 8.30 this morning to visit the remains of Eraclea Minoa, a small town about 45 minutes drive away. The road travels through vinyards and fields of olive and citrus trees. Eraclea Minoa stood above a cape of white stone, which was used for some of the buildings, such as the theatre. This was a pity in a way, because, though the stone is an attractive colour, it was very friable, and has not weathered well.

According to the historian Diodorus, the town was founded by King Minos of Crete, who chased Daedalus (who had escaped from Crete) to Sicily and landed here. Greeks settled here in the 6th century BC, and the town kept the name, calling it Eraclea Minoa.

The town flourished in the 5th century BC, especially after 480 BC; being then very close to the sea, it became quite rich. It was sacked by the Carthaginians in 409 BC but seems to have continued in occupation for around another three centuries. It was eventually covered by a landslide, which helped to preserve some of it. It was partly excavated in the 1950s, but is largely untouched since then.

There are remains of some houses, and the theatre. The theatre is hard to photograph because it is covered by a roof to try and protect the fragile stone from further erosion.

It is in a beautiful and romantic setting, looking over towards the sea, and in the distance you can see a beach, a curve of pale sand with low breaking surf.

We wandered round the jumble of walls that were once buildings - probably people's houses, but it was difficult to identify anything. We also looked in the tiny museum, which had some nice ceramics and some collections of amphorae.

After that, we headed back to Agrigento for a look at the museum there. 

The museum is housed in what used to be a monastery. The attached Norman church of San Nicola has a wonderful Gothic doorway; the door is currently being painted, hence the scaffolding.

The interior of tne church is refreshingly un-baroque!

The museum contains finds dating back to pre-history. This gold cup is 7th century BC

The vase collection, dating from the 6th to the third century BC, is quite outstanding. You can see cabinet after cabinet of masterpieces, each one an exceptional painting. And there seems to have been very little restoration, they have been wonderfully preserved. It's just a shame that none of my photographs was similarly outstanding!

There were many more votive figures dedicated to Demeter, who was especially associated with Sicily. Most of the figures are quite boring, but I could not resist the rather self-contained smile on this head.

One of the treasures of the museum is this early statue of a Greek youth. He probably dates to around 480BC.

He is what is referred to as an ephebe - we might say a youth. He hasn't yet started his military training, so he hadn't many muscles. And being of quite an early period, he hasn't really any expression on his face.

Another of the museum's treasures is a this krater, made in Gela, which isn't far away.

It also dates to the 5th century BC, and illustrates the scene from Homer where Achilles encounters the Amazon Penthesilea in battle and kills her, at the same moment as falling in love with her.

I could include a lot more photos here, there are lots of interesting things in the museum, and some of them are really beautiful. But I don't want to end up posting what looks like a museum catalogue.

It was lunch time by then, so we drove to the beach for lunch, and some of us went swimming. The beach was completely deserted, and the water was quite cold. I did a bit of screaming as I went in.

In the late afternoon we returned to the hotel for a shower and a rest (in Paul's case) and for time to write this (in my case). Before we go out for supper, we are having another lecture.

Enna

Wednesday 10th October - morning

We set off at 8.30 this morning to drive to Enna, which was a reasonably short drive.

Enna is one of the most ancient towns in Sicily, having been occupied since earliest times. It is really a typical medieval hill town, with a tightly packed huddle of buildings and narrow twisty streets, the churches all hemmed in and the views quite spectacular, because it is so high above the valley below.

The route to Enna was quite testing for the bus, with the narrow twisting roads, where the bus was obliged to occupy the whole road on hairpin bends. We had a couple of interesting confrontations with motor caravans, one involving a good deal of shouting and arm waving.

We were all anxious to photograph the wonderful view of Enna from the valley, but the road was a bit too narrow for us to stop. I do have a view of sorts, but it is mostly of a tree which got in my way at the wrong moment!

Once our wonderful driver had navigated the bus up the narrow hairpin bends to the town, we got out to see the castle, which dates to the thirteenth century. It is divided into a number of courtyards,

but we only really had time to climb the tower for fabulous views over the surrounding countryside.

Nearby is the Rock of Ceres, which is associated with the cult of Demeter. Her daughter Persephone is supposed to have been taken down to the underworld from a lake a few kilometres away, Lago de Pergusa. This is the Rock of Ceres, said to have been the place from which Demeter appealed to Jupiter to help her find her daughter.

The foundations you can see on the rock are those of a temple presumed to have been built around 480 BC. 

The main street of Enna is called Via Roma, and we walked along it to the Duomo.

The facade is very plain and Norman as you can see; it was built in 1307. However, the sixteenth century interior is extremely Baroque, with every surface decorated.

There are other plain Norman churches, but everything is hard to photograph because it is difficult to get far enough away from a building to take a photograph, the streets are so narrow.

You can see how little spave there is, even for cars! We had time for a short wander round the town - and the obligatory coffee. When we got back to the bus, our wonderful driver had found some ripe prickly pears for us to enjoy. He kept them in a bucket of water to keep them fresh and cool, and kindly peeled them for us to enjoy.

I haven't had one for over 50 years, and they were delicious; even Paul liked them. 

When we left Enna, it was a two hour drive to Agrigento for a late lunch. I tried a Sicilian speciality, Arancini, deep fried rice balls. One contained minced meat and peas, the other, cheese and ham. I thought they were excellent. Then we went even further and had our ice cream in a a warm brioche, another Sicilian speciality. I enjoyed that too, but Paul says, even though we shared one, that he ate far too much and wants no dinner!

Valley of the Temples

Wednesday 10th October - afternoon

At 2 pm, we met a local guide who took us to the valley of the temples. There were originally seven temples, sacred buildings belonging to the 5th century Greek city of Akragas. The city occupied a high ridge, and its southern limit was a second, lower ridge where the temples were built. The city was attacked many times, and most of the temples were destroyed as a result. The modern city which now occupies the site is called Agrigento, but fortunately the lower ridge was not built over, so the remains of the temples are still there.

We started by walking up to the Temple of Juno (the Greeks would say Hera). This ruined structure has had some of its warm honey-coloured sandstone columns re-erected, and is a beautiful sight in the afternoon sunlight. 

There is a sacred way, lined with early Christian tombs, leading along to the next temple, and there are some superb views across the surrounding countryside, since the ridge is quite high.

The next temple is called the Temple of Concord. This dates to 430 BC, and is the most complete of all the temples, which is because it was converted to an early Christian church in the 6th century, instead of being destroyed like the others.

It too is built of tawny limestone,  and has the simple lines and elegant proportions of all classical Greek temples. When you look inside, you can see that the side walls of the cella have been pierced, just like the church we saw in Siracusa, to turn it into a church.

The sacred way continues past the site of an early necropolis, and passes the oldest temple, that of Hercules (Herakles to the Greeks). It was probably built at the end of the 6th century BC, and 9 of the original 38 columns have been re-erected. The rest are just scattered on the ground.

We passed a villa which used, in the 1920s and 30s to belong to an Englishman called Hardcastle, but we had no time to look at that. We went on through a second gate to the Temple of Jove (Jupiter to the Greeks).

This was a vast structure, but not much of it is left now. It was the largest Doric temple ever known, but it was never finished, was destroyed by the Carthaginians and later was used as a handy source of building stones for a port to the south of the city.

To give you an idea of how vast, a supporting column in the shape of a male figure which was to stand on top of a wall now lies on the ground. It is 8 metres high, and lies on its back with its arms raised and bent to support tne weight of the roof.

And remember, 8 metres wasn't the total height of the roof, the figure topped a high wall!

Beyond that are the scattered remains of two more temples, one possibly dating from the 7th century BC. before the city was officially founded.

By the time we had seen all of that, it was 4 pm and time to get back in the bus and head off to the hotel for a shower. It had been a really hot and sunny day and the site was not provided with much shade. I took my umbrella to use as a sunshade, but it was quite windy so the umbrella blew inside out quite a bit.