Beatrix pottering: The Temple of Concord and the betrayal of Beatrix

Another day, another ancient site. Sicily is full of them, and they are all so good it's very hard, for me at least, to drive past them. (Thank you Kevin for your tolerance of my ruin obsession.) So off to the Valley of the Temples. This is a misnomer, it's actually a ridge, but my, there are some temples. Over a 2km walk, a ruin everywhere you look: sections of the perimeter walls of the Greek city of Akragas founded in the 6th Century BC; the remains of its buildings and wells, and most spectacularly, five temples, of which the Temple of Concordia is the most impressive, as the bones of it are still standing. Seeing it from a distance you don't get the scale of it: the columns around the outside are just massive, so high and so thick. But the proportions mean it still has an elegance about it. Definitely worth the windy walk. (Kevin thought so too.)

Then onwards, in ever worsening weather. The forecast for the next few days was pretty horrible, so we made a radical decision: our route was taking us past a nice resort hotel that some friends are staying at in June. So we stopped by to see if they would shelter us for a few days - bad weather is definitely better seen from a building than a motorhome.

We found the entrance driveway, amongst orange groves that made the road smell divine through the open window (I think it's my new favourite scent). And we turned on to the best road we'd driven on in our entire Sicily trip: smooth, and so neat and tidy, through manicured golf courses bordered with pretty wild flowers. Then we arrived at the entrance barrier. In our slightly grubby camper. I had a hilarious three way conversation with the gatekeeper, and a nice Reservations lady over the phone from the gatehouse (they were absolutely not letting us through until we'd confirmed a room); but finally, we were permitted to enter, the gatekeeper leading us even further through the estate to reception.

They found a short term parking space for poor, out of place Beatrix; we packed our bags (what a pain, so anti the convenience of the motorhome life); had a late lunch; then drove Beatrix to a far away car park, where she would stay for the next few days (safely out of sight). And we were ferried back to the lap of luxury in a golf buggy.

That evening, we were able to watch the lightning and torrential rain from our sea view veranda, with some very tasty room service. While I still love the motorhoming life, this is nice for a day or so, especially when it's raining. Sorry Beatrix.

Raining on our sightseeing: