Saturday morning, we booked a tour to the west coast of Sicily. The full day tour first took us to the historical site of the Segesta Temple, a hill-top location about 1 hour drive out of Palermo. The drive gave us a first view of the countryside.
Sicily is generally a rugged mountainous country with a lot of fertile land on which they grow many agriculture products like grapes, olives, pistachios, almonds etc etc.
Prehistoric inhabitants of Sicily were believed to have come from Troy ( in current Turkey) during the Phoenician period. Subsequently Sicily was conquered by the Carthiginians ( who were based in current day Tunisia), by the Greeks, then the Romans, followed by more than 100 years of Muslim Moors from North Africa, then by the Christians of Normandy ( German stock), the Aragonese ( Spanish) and finally became a part of the Italian Republic.
The Temple of Segesta is unique in that in truth it is not actually a Greek Temple. The area around Segesta was never ruled by the Greeks as the Greek provinces were mostly in the Eastern half of Sicily with centres in Messinia, Catania and Solulento. It was beleived that the folks in Segesta were either so impressed by the architecture of the Greek Temples that they attempted to copy a look-alike temple in their city. And perhaps they also thought that this would trick the Greeks into believing that they were of Greek origins themselves and so be saved from attacks by the Greeks.
the Segesta Temple...
these papier mache hats looks just like straw hats..in many different colours, each costs only 5 or 6 Euros..
pakdokter collected a few for use at the golf course...
a lesson in history...
Marco was a well-informed tour guide...he had also lived some years in Australia..
The ruins of the Segesta Temple...
a Greek Temple would normally be at least 3 times the size of this temple..
there were absence of some features on the columns which differentiated it from a genuine Greek temple..
and the absence of 3 chambers within the temple also made it different from Greek temples..
the folks of Segesta conducted sacrifices of their children at this temple..,
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