Erice (18/9)

Off to explore Sicily. I don't think either of us was disappointed to be leaving Palermo behind. It's scruffiness and decay is depressing, especially after France. It is a difficult call. The cost of maintaining and restoring the rich heritage of its old architecture must be out of the reach of most people, but to pull it down and replace it with new would destroy its heart. But equally, to see the buildings literally decaying away cries out for something to be done.

The Sicilians can do bridges!

We had organised to pick the car up from the airport which is 40 km out of town. By doing this, we avoided driving in Palermo, which was not a bad thing. It would have been bad enough trying to navigate the narrow streets without having to contend with the driving habits of its inhabitants. We were hoping for a Golf, but finished up with a Renault Magane, unfortunately a little larger than a Golf, not what we really wanted for Sicily. Fortunately it was straight onto a freeway, so it gave Allan a chance to settle in to a new car without the added hassle of coping with traffic. We just sat in the outer lane and let everything else fly past. As suspected, the Sicilians pay even less lip service to speed limits than the French, and the type of line on the road means nothing. Despite double white lines, if you can, you pass. We soon discovered that bridges are important to Sicily – it is so mountainous that they are needed to span the steep sided valleys.

The temple at Segesta (partly restored)

It didn't take long to realise that we are not seeing Sicily at its best. It is the end of summer and in many ways it is similar to home, dry, brown and olive green, in part due to many eucalypts! The vineyards and the occasional citrus orchard break up the olive green. There seemed to be many abandoned or unfinished buildings and un-worked land between Palermo and Erice. Not sure if it still hasn't recovered from WWII, the Mafia, or if some of it may be the GFC, or perhaps all three.

Stunning backdrop for a theatre!

We have moved on from churches to Greek ruins. We stopped at Segesta, on our way to Erice. Originally a city of an indigenous Sicilian people, it quickly became Hellenised after Greeks colonised the area. The city has a tumultuous history, having been sacked by rival Greeks, surrendered to the Romans who left them alone, suffered from a slave rebellion, sacked by the Vandals, declined over time and then the Arabs and Normans appeared as per usual. As a city it eventually disappeared except for an almost intact theatre and a beautiful Doric temple. The theatre can seat 4000 people and has the most stunning backdrop of mountains and sea. The temple is some distance from the theatre, and is thought to have never been finished. The columns remained un-fluted, it appears to have never been roofed, and the stone tabs used to lift blocks into place have not been removed. It sits on a hill in splendid isolation. Over the centuries of occupation it's defensive walls were realigned and strengthened. There has been some archeological work done on the site, but much remains to be done. Aerial surveys have revealed the outline of the town, and on Mount Barbaro where the theatre is situated, the agora has been uncovered. The terrain is quite hilly, so it is not an easy site to survey.

Looking down on Trapani from half-way up to Erice

From Segesta we continued on to the hilltop town of Erice. As we drove along there were huge mountains around us, and Jill suddenly pointed out a village on top of one of them. That's where we were headed for and it was an interesting drive up to the top around all the switchbacks in low gear.  Erice is at about 2,500 ft or 750 metres and the mountain essentially goes straight up from the sea.

Erice's history as a settlement goes back to the Phoenicians. It was then Hellenised by the Greeks, was destroyed by the Carthaginians in the first Punic War (264-241BCE) and was of little consequence until firstly the Arabs, then the Normans, occupied it. There is still evidence from all cultures in the town. Some of the remaining city walls are Phoenician and the Norman castle was built on the foundations of a Greek temple which was dedicated to Venus. Most of the town dates from the medieval period, and most of its streets are still cobbled. It was a pleasure to walk around a town which exudes civic pride. The only litter was cigarette buts (there seem to be even more smokers here than in France) and the buildings were looked after.

Rooftops in Erice

Silk embroidery in Erice

We decided to explore the town by buying a ticket which covered the cost of entry fees to all significant buildings. Money from this fee goes into a restoration fund, and there is much evidence that this is being put to good use. Our first stop was at the remains of a monastery, the buildings of which had originally been the palace of a nobleman, and supposedly the cisterns within the site were associated with the temple to Venus. Although called a monastery in the literature, it was actually a Benedictine nunnery which was founded in the late 13th century, and continued to produce embroidered silk tapestries and sweets, for which it was famous, until 1866 when the anticlerical laws suppressing religious orders disbanded it. 

The intricate calcite ceiling

Churches have a habit of collapsing, and the Royal cathedral was no exception. It was built in 1314 using materials from the Greek temple, but had undergone many changes before the interior of the church collapsed in 1853. It was rebuilt and has a very intricately carved calcite ceiling which explains why it looks so clean and bright. Quite beautiful. Its bell tower, which we climbed, is separate from the church. On a clear day you really would see forever, but we had no such luck. It was incredibly hazy, partly from the which smoke comes from numerous fires that you can see as you travel through the countryside. No-one seems to look after these, and we have seen olive groves and vineyard singed by these unattended fires. They also have the time-worn belief that stubble needs to be burned. Erice has lots of churches, but a number of them have be de-consecrated and are now museums. We visited several more of these, all different, and all containing some remarkable relics and works of art, mostly of Sicilian origin.

The tower from which we could
Look over Erice

As usual, wandering through the village took longer than anticipated, so we decided to find accommodation on the mountain for the night instead of heading off to wherever. Seeing signs to a hotel, we followed the trail to a small B&B-style hotel which looked very comfortable. They actually had off-road parking (very tight) so we took it. The name certainly didn't have a Sicilian ring to it - the "Hotel Edelweiss"??!!, but the hostess was definitely Sicilian, with a smattering of English, which was a help. With the help of our host, we fetched the car from where we had parked it, and followed him back to the hotel. The car was actually outside the town walls, so we had some tight turns to make as we drove up through the old town to where our hotel was. After settling in we went looking for a restaurant for dinner, with gelati for dessert. The day had started off warm, but because of the altitude and its proximity to the sea, Erice cooled off very nicely, although our room didn't benefit as much as we would have liked.