Dinners & Mosaics

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Geo: 37.3835, 14.3697

In Agrigento we were staying at Hotel Villa Athena, an elegant property with views across to the Temple of Concordia which looks beautiful by day and even more spectacular at night when it is lit up. Superb property in every way... although posh dinner was an extremely entertaining experience!

We were greeted by the Head Waiter on arrival and seated on the terrace where only about 5 other tables were occupied. I counted six other waiters hovering around - all looking very dapper in their white jackets but then it seemed that the cloak of invisibility had been thrown over us.

After a very lengthy time with no appearance of either menus, water or bread we were rather perplexed. After resorting to asking for menus, it seemed another table hadn't finished with the menus, so we had to wait. Seriously, not enough menus! Various other hiccups had us reminiscing about tales of Fawlty Towers, but instead of one Manuel, they had 6.

We think each waiter had a very specific purpose and if they were confronted with a slightly different task everything imploded. We had to laugh it was so farcical. Thankfully when our dinner and drinks finally appeared the food was excellent!

Happily, our meal in Agrigento the following night was a seamless experience and we stayed late to hear a local band that was playing in the Piazza. Donatella, our guide from the Temples, was so excited to see us there and soon we were meeting her family, (her brother was on keyboards) Jo got a good work out of her Italian, whilst the rest of us made do with a few words and lots of hand gestures.

A change of pace and a visit to Scala dei Turchi (The Turkish Steps). This is an interesting formation of sea scoured rocks that are white with calcium deposits. If the water had been warmer I might have contemplated a swim - but it wasn't to be.

On our way to Syracusa, we detoured to Piazza Armerina, stopping at Villa Romana del Casale which contains the largest and most complex collection of Roman mosaics in the world. Often a claim like that falls short but in this case it deserves its UNESCO World Heritage listing in every way.

The villa was constructed around 4th century AD, although abandoned after a landslide in 12th century AD and pretty much forgotten until a few mosaics and columns were found in the mid 1800s. Since then archaeological excavations have revealed the most exquisite mosaics. Highly detailed hunting scenes, geometric patterns, exotic animals and so much more. The craftsmanship is superb and the scale is vast... one mosaic around the atrium is 60m in length (and largely intact).

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