3/14/18
Today, we visited Selinunte, an ancient temple site, as we as Raculmuto, a province of Agrigento and the town where Leonardo Sciascia lived. At Selinunte, we visited several temples overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, one of which was considered to be the largest in the ancient world — larger dimensions than a typical “peripteral hexistile”. After scrambling around on the ruins constituting most of the temples, we stopped by at a “piccolo” cafe in Selinunte, where I ate a wonderful caprese salad with oregano, and olives and olive oil local to the region. Next, we made our way to Raculmuto, a good representation of an extremely small town in Sicily. We first visited Sciascia’s foundation, containing most of his letter exchanges, and his collection of famous writer’s portraits. After this quick tour, we walked into the main strip of the town, passing by the theatre Sciascia often frequented growing up, as well as a staircase, pictured in this post, where an annual festa takes place, in which locals ride horses carrying gifts up the stairs to bring to the altar of a church at the top of the steps. On the Main Street, we also found a life-size statue of Sciascia with no base, in order to express Sciascia’s connection to the local people of the town, as well as his desire to be viewed as an equal. To end the day, we drove to our hotel in Porto Empedocle, which was situated right on the water.
