Tour of The Valley of the Temples in Agrigento Sicily - Can't believe this is Italy!

Today we go on a tour of The Valley of the Temples (Valle dei Tempi) in Agrigento, Sicily. Subscribe for more videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/thegotofamilyvlog?sub_confirmation=1

Who knew that Italy had so many well-kept Greek Temples? Well ok, some people like Rick Steves maybe, but I always thought you could only see this kind of scene in Greece - glad I was wrong! Agrigento is the site of Ancient Greek city called Akragas (notice the similarities?) and The Valley of the Temples contains some of the most beautiful and best kept Greek Temples outside of Greece, for which reason is surely worth a visit if you are ever in Sicily or love everything Greece related. It is a World Heritage Site for a reason after all!

The whole town of Agrigento is something truly unique when experienced for the first time - The Valley of the Temples, which is actually a ridge and not a valley but try hyping up The Ridge of the Temples? Yeah, not as sexy... Anyhow, the Valley overlooks the perched town of the Agrigento, which itself takes on a yellowish-brown colour that matches the loess coloured soil and adds the perfect element to make the whole scene feel surreal. Honestly, I thought of Egypt when I first heard the name Valley of the Temples, and the nature surrounding the area does absolutely nothing to displace the feeling of grandeur elicited by such thoughts - it delivers the magic!

During our tour, we started off by visiting the Temple of Hera (or Juno in Roman mythology), who of course was the wife of Zeus. Built in 450 BC, parts of the temple were damaged by fire in 406 BC and restored during Roman times. The temple really looks to be in very good shape, and according to our tour guide a lot of this had to do with its Doric style that is better suited to combat earthquakes.

We then see what the fortifications look like - which were basically directly carved out from a mountain! Crazy! And if that wasn't crazy enough, we then learned that tombs, called arcosolia (pl. of arcosolium), were also carved out from the mountains there. I can't even imagine how you would do that...

We then stopped for a little snack to refuel and chat with a friendly passer-by, to then get to the Temple of Concordia. This Temple is incredibly well-preserved, and a real treat to explore, and also one of the most notable example of Ancient Greek buildings existing anywhere today. A reason for why it was so well-kept can be attributed to its conversion into a Christian church.

They also have Girgentana goats on the premisses brought to Sicily and Agrigento all the way from Afghanistan in the 4th century BC!

We then explored the Temple of Olympian Zeus, but sadly this temple was more or less destroyed. We also saw one of the atlas giants in the Olympeion field before finally taking the train back to the start.

The set up in the Valley of the Temples is really neat - a narrow road basically connects all the sites, which makes it incredibly easy and convenient to explore. So you can walk it one way and then just simply take the train on your way back.

Our tour guide was Sergio Bruccato. He was very insightful and kept us interested and engaged the whole time. Highly recommended if you are ever in town and consider doing the Valley of the Temples (which will likely be THE reason why you are in town anyways). Here's his contact info:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Guida-turistica-autorizzata-Sergio-Brucato-805474022900295/

Audio in this video:

"Day One" by Declan DP
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6sfIDwDgvk
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About us: We are Daniel, Robyn, Ava, Rose and Ella, and together we are The Go To Family. We love to travel! We also love food, exploring historical sites and, of course, doing loads of fun things together as a family.

In our videos, you will see me and Robyn tackle every obstacle that traveling with kids throws at us. We do traveling almost exactly the same way we did before having kids, it just takes a little bit more planning these days. The result, however, is simply more fun! It's also very rewarding to be able to show the kids new cultures and live new experiences with them at the same time. Our mission is to inspire other Millennials to travel with kids.

Our 7-year-old daughter, Ava, also has her own YouTube channel. Feel free to check it out right here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiLDYDVVLi5_iQ7PFvQwyZg

We also really enjoy posting to Instagram, you can check out our channels here:

Robyn: https://www.instagram.com/robyngood/
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Rose and Ella: https://www.instagram.com/ellaandrose/
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Cheers and have a wonderful day!

TheGoToFamily

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#agrigento #sicily #italy #italia #sicilia #visit_italy #travel_with_kids #family_travel #greek_temples #travel_vlog #walking_tour #Valley_of_the_Temples #Valle_dei_Tempi

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