The Road to Trapani - PART ONE

Tuesday, May 20, 2025
Segesta, Erice, and the road to Trapani (PART ONE)

First of all: farewell to Palermo. Our excellent driver Alessandro smoothly navigated out of the city, past the old port of Calla...
...through neighborhoods with blooming 
jacaranda trees (I'm realizing that purple is my new favorite color)...
...and out onto the highway headed southwest towards Trapani.
Because American travelers to Sicily always ask about the Mafia, Andrea spent some time giving us some background about the Sicilian Mafia and the Italian state. 

On the highway, we passed between 2 obelisks, one on each side of the road, commemorating the location of a traumatic event and day that Sicilians remember: May 23rd, 1992. Judge Giovanni Falcone and everyone with him was killed in a huge explosion when the Mafia blew up their car, creating a huge crater in the highway at that spot. Falcone was the first of 3 magistrates who were murdered by the Mafia within a year or so due to their investigations. This article tells part of their story: Falcone and Borsellino. Andrea told us Sicilians were planning memorials and events for May 23rd, coming up in only a few days.
Our first stop outside of Palermo was the Segesta archeological site. The site has a long and complicated history, possibly going back to the Trojan War. The story we heard was that Aeneas, leader of the Greek fleet, was traveling with warriors leaving Troy who landed in Sicily. There they met the native people, the Sikilians, and lived and blended together to become a people called the Elimi (and their artifacts are Elymian). Never heard of them? Neither have I. It's not clear if Aeneas was really with the Greeks who landed, but they did come to Sicily.
The two major sites at Segesta were the theatre atop one hill and the temple on the other. Here's our group taking the last few steps from shuttle (yay!) to theatre. On the way we saw a few ruins from a medieval village that once existed on the same mountain.

At the theatre, everyone tried to find the sweet spot like in Greece: the place on the stage (no longer there) where the acoustics are perfect and an actor's voice can carry to all the seats. 

This theatre has been restored and is used today for some events. The seats include many of the original stones.

Mary and I practiced setting up pics with flowers in the foreground to turn them into "interesting photographs." If you look closely you can see the Temple on the other hill.

Or I could also just take the flower pics, especially if they're purple.
PlantNet helped me identify these. Including this for Laura:
But I digress. Back in Segesta, Mary and I decided to walk back down the hill towards the base, then take a quick uphill jog to the Temple. Here are some dudes showing the trail.
It was time to board the bus for our next stop, Erice. Stay tuned for part 2. 

-Christine




Comments

  1. LauraMay 22, 2025 at 4:57 PM

    Appreciate the plant ID! :) lots of people at the temple! It’s quite scenic.

    ReplyDelete

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