Siracusa - Arch Park + Museo

And finally on Siracusa: the Archaeological Park and the Archaeological Museum. We bought the combo ticket; visited the Park one day and the Museum 2 days later. The Arch Park was not as "open" as one would like; e.g., the Roman Amphitheater could be viewed on one side only and not entered, just one small part of the quarry was open, and the ruins above the theater were closed. however, the Greek Theater was magnificent. The Museum was good - tons of artifacts laid out in 5 sectors.

The Roman Amphitheater.


The Altar of Hiero is over 100 meters long.


I love shooting pics of Ancient Greek Theaters.














The Ancient Quarry next to the theater.








And another ancient quarry 1.5 kms to the west that is now a beautiful garden.


The Archaeological Museum Paulo Orsi has an engrossing coin exhibit.


And lots of other cool stuff like this small horse sculpture.


Architectural decorations and details of the Greek Temples on Ortigia.


Sculptures and more.

The Magnificent Villa Romana del Casale

Quite literally in the geographic center of Sicily, in the middle of nowhere, there is this villa that has acres of mosaic. Being a mosaic fan, I had to see it. There were a few hurdles.
1) The closest town is Piazza Armerina. There are no direct buses to Piazza Armerina and we had to deal with reduced schedules for Saturday and Sunday.
2) The site is 5 km from town. No local buses this time of the year. We walked.
3) At 700+m high, PA was cold. A number of old ladies were sporting their fur coats.
4) There is hotel selection to speak of.

The mosaics were worth every bit of trouble.

Laid in the 4th century Ad, preserved by a mud slide from 1200s to 1800s, unlike bible stories in medieval church mosaics, these were hunting & games scenes, mythology scenes, not to mention geometric designs. They went on and on. Most of the mosaics are in an incredible state of preservation, as well as the whole villa itself, with its unique layout. This site had it all. Now I am wondering whether there is any point in going around seeing anything else. It would just be so anticlimactic.

Photo notes: One, all of the mosaics are embedded in the villa's floors and my photos are from platforms above. Most of the human figures are close to life size. Two, the mix of natural light and electric lighting was difficult to balance.

A corner of the famous hunting scene where it looks like "the kill" will be made with a large rock.


And in another corner, bird watching of sorts.


One of the mosaics is several hundred feet long and features the capture of wild animals in Africa and their loading onto ships for transport to Rome.














Bedroom.


The famous Athletic Women.


In one part of the villa, The Basilica, the was floor was covered with marble mosaics.


The Cathedral of Piazza Armenina.


Street food! Panini Caprese with fries please.

Agrigento - The Archaeological Park

The Valley of the Temples is one of the largest archaeological sites in the world according to Wikipedia. We came here to see the mile long row of 7 ancient Greek temples, perched on the city wall, all in varying stages of collapse. Note that we only visited 5 of the 7 temples.

We started our visit to the Valley of the Temples in Agrigento with a stop in the site museum, where in addition to an excellent display of vases and coins there are pieces of 4 telamon from the site. A telamon is a statue that holds up part of a building. It is conjectured that Temple of Zeus was supported in part by 38 of these telamon.

The museum was pretty good with English description for most but not all objects, and the archaeological site was very good. It's not often one can see 7 er 5 Greek temples in one afternoon.

In addition, the site has a Roman-era ruins and Christian cemetery ruins that are adjacent to the Greek Temples.

One of the many vases in the museum.


Coin with with owl.


Telamon - over 20 feet tall.


Temple of Castor and Pollux with modern Agrigento behind on the hill.


A big heap of rubble, fragments of telamons and columns, foundations, and the altar, are all that are left of the Temple of Zeus.


Temple of Hercules.


Looking down the Sacred Way to the so-called Temple of Concord, the best preserved of the temples as it's superstructure was converted into a Christian Church about 700 AD.


Concordia reminds one of the temple at Segesta.


Here you can see how the Greek Temple's cella (main room) was cut with arches to make it the nave of the Christian Church.


And a view back along the ancient city wall to Temple Concordia.


Finally, the Temple of Hera.