Brought to you by UNESCO

In Boston, there is a band called Classic Ruins. Back in the day, we shared a practice space with them and later a record label. Hearing the phrase "classic ruins" twice whilst touring a Roman villa naturally caused us much amusement, because that's how we are.

Temple of Concordia, straight through

We loaded up the coach and left Agrigento for a place called Valle dei Templi, the Valley of the Temples, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It's not actually a valley, but it definitely contains temples. Greek temples in Doric style, to be specific. We saw three of the seven on the site, as well as some statuary and a cluster of curly-horned goats.

The temples dedicated to Hera and to Heracles were mostly destroyed. Invading armies, Carthaginians in particular, it seems, were more interested in demonstrating their power than in historical preservation.

The so-called Temple of Concordia, however, is mostly intact and quite magnificent. It spent time as a church, so the altar was destroyed. We don't know which deity it was originally dedicated to ("Concordia" coming from a Latin inscription nearby). According to Wiki, it's considered one of the most outstanding examples of Greek architecture with its six columns across and 13 columns deep.

Goats will eat anything

We had a break from classic ruins after an hour or so drive into the interior of Sicily at an agriturismo called Legumeria Le Fontanelle in Caltanissetta. I don't often take photos of food, and now I realize at least one reason why people do — to remember what you had! As I recall, the farm food was fresh, rustic, and delicious, the way we like it. We didn't always have wine with lunch, but we did that day. Before we left, we had time to commune with the chickens, duck, and goats kept behind the main building.

After lunch, we drove another hour or so through beautiful country to another UNESCO heritage site, the Villa Romana del Casale. This is the remains of a fourth century Roman villa, a huge structure with something like 60 rooms, many of which we saw. The mosaics are so well preserved because they were buried for centuries by landslides and flooding and were excavated only in the late 19th century.

The scope of this villa is astounding. One can only imagine how wealthy and influential the owner must have been, how many (mostly enslaved) people were involved in construction, and the number of hours and days it must have taken to create each mosaic. The quality and variety of the mosaics is amazing: people, animals (many exotic), geometric shapes, scenes of work, scenes of play, scenes of fantasy.

Part of a very long hallway

The famous "bikini athletes" mosaic depicts women playing competitive games dressed very much like modern female beach volleyball players. (Sorry, I did not get the best photos of that one.) There is a mosaic that despicts children driving chariots, with different birds instead of horses pulling the vehicles. It seems like something out of a fairy tale.

The colours are often still vibrant because they come from the stones themselves. There are also intact frescoes on some of the walls.

The Villa Romana del Casale was impressive, and our site guide was very knowledgeable, but at a certain point it became exhausting. It was like trying to see too much of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in too few hours. But unless you go to study the mosaics over more time, a long walk through room after room is the only way to do it. It's good to have photos to examine at leisure.

Our drive from the villa to Siracusa was slowed at one point by sheep being herded by two guys in a Mitsubishi pickup truck. I'm not often quick enough to snap things from the bus, but this time I managed it. Just another day on a rural Sicilian highway!

Sheep rule, we wait