SicilyFive

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Temple Segesta

Page Five

Here is Tom waiting for the train to Segesta, the famous Greek Temple in the countryside of Palermo. We took the train after a 1 hour wait. Best thing about the Palermo Station is the MacDonalds. It provides, for a small fee, the only toilet in the whole station. An attendant keeps it perfectly clean. Thank you MacDonalds.

Temple was built in 430 BC by the Greeks. This was the site of the ancient city of Elymians (indigenous people), Greeks, Muslims, Normans, and Romans. And now ,Tom is there in front.

The temple was built to convince the Athenians that Segesta was very important and worshiped their Greek gods. So when Athens sent over their armies, they destroyed another nearby city, Selinunte, instead of them.

Here is the temple sitting alone at the top of Mt. Barbaro, beautiful site !! At the site there has been found remains of a Muslim Mosk and a Norman Castle.

The Greek Theatre also on top of the mountain. As the Greeks watched a play, the backdrop was the whole beautiful valley.Past those hills is the countryside of Alcamo, where our great, grandfather supposedly lived before emmigrating.

A closer view of the huge columns..It is sort of put together with stone made into the shape of wheels, on top of each other.There are 40 columns.

This is some of the pastoral scene we walked thru to get to the temple. Beautiful sheep out in the field and watched over by their shepherd (not in picuture.)

A real running stream !! Beautiful water.We passed hillsides covered with red, yellow and purple wildflowers.

Here you can see the Temple sitting on the hillside. This was taken from the site of the theatre.At the very bottom of the hill ( top right) you can see the place Tom and I started our walk to the Temple.

MONTE PELLIGRINO This is the large mountain at one end of the Palermo Bay, it is visible from the port where our ancestors departed. Tom and I hiked to one of the ledges overlooking the ocean below. We were really trying to get to that other point. It was so high up that it made us feel faint to try and stand at the top, so we sat down to take the pictures. The other point in the picture is where a statue of Santa Rosalia sits.

The main attraction at the top of Mt. Pelligrino is the Shrine of Santa Rosalia. It is in a cave in this huge rock cliff. Jutting out from the rock is a monastery built there in the 1600's.

In 245 B.C. Pelligrino was inhabited by Hamilcar, the father of Hannibal, with his army during the battle of Carthage and Rome.

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At the entrance of the cave church are beautiful pillars of Sicilian marble. The story of Santa Rosalia that started in 1159 A.D. can by found on Wikipedia

The inside of the Shrine, a small church. with an alter dedicated to Santa Rosalia. Her remains were buried in the Palermo Cathedral. There is fresh water dripping thru the rock into a big cistern here.