{"id":2333,"date":"2016-05-02T09:15:35","date_gmt":"2016-05-02T15:15:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dltwt.com\/?p=2333"},"modified":"2016-05-02T09:21:31","modified_gmt":"2016-05-02T15:21:31","slug":"the-valley-of-the-temples","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/?p=2333","title":{"rendered":"The Valley of the Temples"},"content":{"rendered":"
We headed south on Thursday to spend the night in Agrigento and visit the grand Valley of the Temples, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.\u00a0 Just like Segesta, you will swear that you have been unknowingly teleported to Greece when you visit Valley of the Temples. \u00a0 The fact that Sicily is home to Greek ruins scattered throughout the island and slowly fading in the relenting heat of the sun came as surprise to us. \u00a0What is also surprising is the quantity and quality of these ruins, many of which are located in the Sicilian countryside, uncovered, unprotected and dwarfing even the tallest of olive trees. \u00a0The Valle Dei Templi is Italy’s most important and prominent archaeological park and the largest archaeological site in the world. (We thought Greece would have larger sites.) \u00a0We also were perplexed on why they call this site a valley since it is located on a ridge outside the town of Agrigento. \u00a0 There are 7 spectacular, well-preserved Greek temples from the 6th and 5th century B.C. here. \u00a0This site also has ruins of other temples, houses, streets and an amphitheatre.\u00a0 The most impressive and best preserved temple is the Temple of Concordia. \u00a0The majority of its columns are still intact with a series of arches that were later added to convert the temple to a Christian church. \u00a0The other temples were only partially remaining temples with quite a bit of “ruin rubble” surrounding them. \u00a0The most intriguing feature of the “Valley” is the fact that almost all of the surrounding city of Agrigento (a.k. Akragas) remains unexcavated. \u00a0Who knows what may lie ahead for a lucky archaeologist?<\/div>\n
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While all these Italian ruins are quite interesting, we are on an archaeological overload!\u00a0 We are looking forward to visiting the Balboa Island of the eastern shores of Sicily, our next destination.<\/div>\n
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\"OLYMPUS<\/a>
What remains of one of the temples<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Temple<\/a>
Temple of Concordia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Overlooking<\/a>
Overlooking the valley & ocean<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"This<\/a>
This was a fortification wall – tombs were added 900 years later<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"OLYMPUS<\/a>
These were excavated in 2005 – they are in perfect condition (other than the missing heads)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Love<\/a>
Love these goats called Girgentana! Only\u00a0\u00a0exist on Sicily.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We headed south on Thursday to spend the night in Agrigento and visit the grand Valley of the Temples, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.\u00a0 Just like Segesta, you will swear that you have been unknowingly teleported to Greece when you visit Valley of the Temples. \u00a0 The fact that Sicily is home to Greek ruins … Continue reading The Valley of the Temples<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Si9J-BD","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2333"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2366,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2333\/revisions\/2366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}