Thursday - Segesta and Castellammare del Golfo

 D leaves all the holiday planning to me, he thinks because I buy the travel books then I must decide on the itinerary as well.  Sometimes it's great, but sometimes not, which you will read about in my next post.  So first back to this one, Segesta looked amazing in the "Eyewitness Travel" book, so Thursday morning, back into the car and off we go.  This is what the Book had to say: 

"According to legend, the ancient capital fo the Elymians was founded on the rolling green hills of the Castellammare del Golfo area by exiles from Troy.  Segesta was constantly at war with Selinunte and was frequently attacked.  Yet the majestic Doric temple has miraculously survived sackings and the ravages of time, and stand in splendid and solemn isolation on the hill facing Monte Barbaro.  The city of Segesta was built above the temple on the top of the mountain.  Here lie the ruins of some building and the well preserved 3rd century BC theatre, where ancient Greek plays are performed every other summer." 

We arrived at the ruins in Segesta, parked the car and went to get tickets, I think you are supposed to start at the temple, but after yesterdays climb I saw that there was another hill to climb and decided that is what we would do first, just after having our morning ritual cappuccino.  This time armed with frozen bottles of water, and no heavy bags we set off.  We walked past everyone who was waiting for the bus to take them up the hill, now the bus only cost an extra €1.50 but it was an achievement yesterday and today it would be even more so.  Well half way up the first stretch of road, I contemplated going back for a bus ticket but decided no I could do it, and this time I was well ahead of Em.

By the time we got to the top which must have taken about 45 minutes, it was so nice to look back on what we had achieved, also as you were climbing the view of the temple just go better and better, which you would have missed out had you taken the bus.  So my mind is made up, from now on I walk and the higher up the better.  We reached the summit and the ruins of ancient Segesta and the theatre, which is absolutely beautiful and so well preserved.  When you sit in the theatre you have the view of the hills and the sea which is stunning.  After spending about an hour on the summit we headed back down to the car park, this time we had to promise Em an ice cream if she would do the walk to the Temple as well as today her little legs did not want to do any more walking. 

We decided to have lunch first and then head to the Temple, at most of these places we were the only English speaking tourists, everyone else was mainly from mainland Europe or Italy.  After lunch we climbed the road to the temple, I must say it was a little bit disappointing because the views on the climb up the mountain were so spectacular, the closer you got the less you saw.  Also the temple was barricaded so you could not enter it, just knowing how long it has been there was awe enough for me. 

We then headed back towards Palermo and decided to see if we could find a nice beach on the way back, as the one in Capaci was just so dirty, I was also worried with all the trash lying on the beaches how many needles maybe buried in the sand. 

We first headed down to the ancient city of Castellammare del Golfon, on the Tyrrhenian Sea but it was just a fishing village, another ancient town but decided to find a beach.  Not far out of town was a nice beach, which was a lot cleaner than Capaci, but still not 100%.  Emily was off and in the sea water in no time, while D and I just lay on the sand and soaked up the sun, I didn't think it was hot enough to swim, but then I am not a kid anymore.

After about 2 hours we headed back to our new home.