After arriving in Palermo, Sicily on Tuesday,  we headed off to see the old city of Erice on Wednesday.  It sits high on a hill overlooking the Mediterranean.  Our GPS sent us on a wild goose chase through winding, narrow streets to the center of the “new” town of Erice.  The new town was far below the cliffs on which the original Erice stood.  We could see the very winding road that led to the top; however it was challenging to find it.  Erice was one of the nicest hilltop towns we have ever visited because it hasn’t been over developed as a tourist site. There were restaurants, a few ceramic shops and a limited number of tourist junk shops. The town has several castles that were built through the centuries as well as a few churches. What it will never lose is the outstanding views that you get after you drive up the long very curvy road. We were also surprised by the limited tour buses and, in general, the lack of tourists. We wandered the streets, enjoyed the views and this quaint city.

We then decided to visit the Greek ruins of Segesta.  The Romans and the Arabs eventually took possession of Segesta and it was completely abandoned sometime during the middle ages.  This desertion allowed the ruins to survive relatively untouched.  It was fascinating to see the remains of three distinct time periods laid bare.

The primary attraction here is a large Doric Greek temple sitting on a hillside in the farm lands. It is one of the most well-preserved Greek temples in the entire world.  One could be easily be fooled into thinking that the temple was built one hundred years ago instead of twenty-six hundred!  It is interesting that the non-fluted columns were a series of 3-4 ft high cut stones set on top of each other versus the one piece Roman columns seen elsewhere.  It may have been because of the type of stone, cutting or moving technology that may have differed between the periods. There was never a roof on this temple.  It is noteworthy that this exceptional Greek temple was built in this predominately non-Greek town.  We read an interesting summary about Segesta.  It seems that the city had been looking to Athens for assistance in its struggle against Selinute (another area of ruins, we did not visit).  To insure the Greeks would be visibly impressed with Segesta’s size and importance, a Greek temple was quickly constructed.  Once the alliance was secured, the town people never bothered to complete the temple.

We then hiked up a hill to see various ruins and an amphitheater dating back, in some cases, to 400+ BC. The views from the amphitheater looked over the Gulf of Castellammare.  During the summer, productions are often staged here.