We took a train across the island of Sicily from Palermo to Agrigento, and the Valley of the Temples on Friday. "This splendid archaeological park consists of eight temples (and various other remains) built between about 510 BC and 430 BC: the Temple of Hera, the Temple of Concordia, the Temple of Heracles, the Temple of Olympian Zeus, the Temple of Castor and Pollux, the Temple of Hephaestos, the Temple of Demeter, and the Temple of Asclepius (the God of Medicine). Apart from this latter, which is to be found on the banks of the Akragas river, all are situated in the same area on rocky crests south of modern day Agrigento (not really in a Valley at all!). The archaeological park and landscape of the Valley of the Temples is the largest archaeological site in ... read more

We were met at the train station by our host Luigi's son, and greeted at the apartment by Luigi himself. Luigi is of Spanish/Jewish/German/Italian descent and the same age as Bill. He experienced the bombing of Palermo as a young child, had many stories of his parents' and grandparents' struggles to survive. He was an aeronautics professor, and speaks several languages, including French and English. The apartment is wonderful: in the heart of the Capo district, a very poor, old neighborhood that is being renovated. You can walk past doorways and look inside, seeing things that appear not to have changed since the Middle Ages, right next to a renovated apartment building. On the next block, we can see buildings being torn down, by hand, from our window. While we are of course stared at, we ... read more

We checked out of our apartment on Friday morning, after first hearing the story of the "madman" of Ostuni. He is an older man who walks around shouting in a peculiar, but very loud voice, often in front of our apartment, It turns out that he stole a pack of cigarettes when he was 17, and the police beat him so badly that he has permanent brain damage....very, very sad. We had to walk quite a ways to get to the car rental, but the process went smoothly and we were given temporary custody of a white Fiat 500. I was the designated driver for Day One. We headed first for Locorotondo, another hilltop, white town. Our next stop was Matera, the oldest sight of continuous human inhabitation in Italy, if not all Europe. "The area ... read more

Vicenza is the city of Andrea Palladio, an architect who had a whole style of design named after him, and influenced Thomas Jefferson among others. He began life as a stonemason, whose talents were recognized by an intellectual nobleman. He is considered to have perfected existing values of harmony and proportion in his designs. He created over 40 palaces, villas, and public and religious buildings. His designs have been badly copied throughout the world, but the originals are still breath-taking... We took the train to Vicenza, and spent the afternoon walking around and gazing at magnificent buildings. We visited the famous Teatro Olympico and took a bus out to see La Rotonda, a Palladio villa in the countryside, and walked past another villa "ai Nani" that we decided not visit (another 10 euros each...) La Rotonda ... read more

As Bill has been to Venice several times, and I have been once, we knew we weren't going to do the "big sights" on this trip. Our plans only included wandering around the city and visiting Murano. Since we had an afternoon while docked in Venice on the cruise ship, we decided to use that time to visit Murano. It was a beautiful day again, and, while there were mobs of tourists everywhere, it was easy to get to Murano and back, and to find a place to eat there. We ducked into the first glass-maker we saw, and it turned out to be a great choice. We were the only ones there, and spent time talking with the charming saleswoman, who offered me a job based on my English and French, not my Italian! Much ... read more