Agrigento

Time to move on to the city of Agrigento. I arrived around noon at the depicted train station. Agrigento's attraction is the Valley of the Temples, just a few km outside the city.

I was interested in taking an evening tour of temples which would look spectacular floodlit, but investigation showed that they only ran in summer. So I had an afternoon free and decided to do my laundry.

Fortunately the rain had not followed me here and skies were blue. The old city is compact, the main street contains most of the things of interest to visitors and is ideal for walking. One drawback is that it's built on a steep hillside and the roads are like terraces with stairs or lanes between levels.

The new city with taller buildings is to the east, but there are no sights there. Unfortunately even supermarkets are far away so I had to pay a bit more for stuff from convenience stores. I guess residents go shopping with their cars.

A statue of Andrea Camilleri sits on the side of Via Atenea, the main pedestrian street in the old town. He was born in nearby Porto Empedocle, which is the model for the fictional Vigata in his Commissario Montalbano stories. Agrigento corresponds to the fictional Montelusa.

More about this later when I get to Catania.