Sicily is known for its coastline, but no less wonderful is its deep interior, the entroterra. To see both at their “finest”, head to Agrigento, said Julia Buckley in The Times.
This town on the island’s southern coast is famed for its ancient Greek temples, one of which – the Tempio della Concordia – is said to be the world’s best-preserved Doric temple after the Parthenon. There are beautiful beaches nearby, while to the north, rolling hills “crescendo into craggy green mountains”, and lonely towns perched on high bluffs bear the marks of the “myriad” cultures of Sicily’s past conquerors. There are Roman villas, Arabic watchtowers, Norman churches and Swabian castles. It’s “one great Mediterranean gumbo of raw beauty and, best of all, there are hardly any other tourists to share it with”. In Agrigento, you might stay at Villa Athena, an 18th-century villa “set plum inside the Valley of the Temples archaeological park”. Converted into a hotel in 1972, it is wonderfully peaceful, and commands magnificent views of the ruins.
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