Monday, September 18, 2006

Agrigent-NO

The next stop on the Sicily tour is Agrigento, but unfortunatly I can't find the sim card with those photos despite tearing apart my travelling backpack :-( It's actually not that big a loss since Agrigento is highly overrated. Not even on the original plan, I was convinced by various guides that this was a Sicily "must-see" as it's descibed as a seaside oasis with the most numerous and complete ancient ruins on the island.

If you've ever been to Rome you will be very disappointed. There is a killer sea view, but nothing that isn't eclipsed by taormina, cefalu and the Aeolian islands. The ruins are nothing special and totally overrun by tourists. The only consolation was the fantastic high-scale restaurant hiden in the undeveloped space between the main city centre on the hill/mountain and the seaside village. I wish I could remember the name of that restaurant as the service was exceptional with food quality to match. A terrific way to get away from the hype of Agrigento.

Satirically (or sadly) enough, after diner we took a stroll down by the waterside to check out the local festivities and saw the following. The only other surviving pic from Agrigento is this photo from the cheezy circus-fair that was celebrating the last weekend of Summer before school started and reminded us of the previous wedding-weekend in Paris:



Vivre La Paris... even if it is in Agrigento as a lit up model ;-)

All in all Agrigento wasn't all that bad, but it certainly pailed in comparison with the rest of the trip! On to Catania!!