7 Best Sights in Sicily, Italy

Ancient Akragas (the Greek name for Agrigento) was synonymous with decadence and excess, a lifestyle perfectly summed up by the philosopher Plato who remarked that its people "built as if they are going to live forever, and eat as if they will never eat again." This museum is testimony to the fact that the people of Akragas had the means to buy the very best, from the high quality of the red-figured Greek banqueting ware to scenes on some of the magnificent kraters (used for mixing wine and water) that evoke life at an ancient dinner party in vivid detail. Look out as well for the double-walled wine jar, with space between its two walls for snow to chill the wine.

The temples of Agrigento, a UNESCO World Heritage site, are considered to be some of the finest and best-preserved Greek temples in the world. Whether you first come upon the valley in the early morning light, bathed by golden floodlights after sunset, or in January and February when the valley is awash in the fragrant blossoms of thousands of almond trees, it's easy to see why Akragas (Agrigento's Greek name) was celebrated by the poet Pindar as "the most beautiful city built by mortals." The temples were originally erected as a showpiece to flaunt the Greek victory over Carthage, and they have since withstood a later sack by the Carthaginians, mishandling by the Romans, and neglect by Christians and Muslims.

Although getting to, from, and around the dusty ruins of the Valle dei Templi is pretty easy, this important archaeological zone still deserves several hours. The temples are a bit spread out, but the valley is all completely walkable and usually toured on foot. However, since there's only one hotel (Villa Athena) that's close enough to walk to the ruins, you'll most likely have to drive to reach the site. The best place to park is at the entrance to the temple area. The site, which opens at 8:30 am, is divided into western and eastern sections, linked by a bridge. The best way to see them both is to park at the Temple of Juno entrance and walk downhill through the eastern zone, across the footbridge into the western zone, and then return back uphill, so that you see everything again but from a different angle and in a different light. The best time to go is a couple of hours before sunset, although if you are in Agrigento in high summer you might want to consider a night visit; the gates open a short while before sunset, with the temples floodlit as night falls.

You'll want to spend time seeing the eight pillars of the Tempio di Ercole (Temple of Hercules) that make up Agrigento's oldest temple complex, dating from the 6th century BC. The Tempio di Giunone (Temple of Juno) at the top of the hill is perhaps the most beautiful of all the temples, partly in ruins and commanding an exquisite view of the valley (especially at sunset). The low wall of mighty stone blocks in front of it was an altar on which animals were sacrificed as an offering to the goddess. Next down the hill is the almost perfectly complete Tempio della Concordia (Temple of Concord), perhaps the best-preserved Greek temple currently in existence, thanks to having been converted into a Christian church in the 6th century, and restored back to being a temple in the 18th century. Below it is the valley’s oldest surviving temple, the Temple of Hercules, with nine of its original 38 columns standing, the rest tumbled around like a child’s upended bag of building bricks.

Continuing over the pedestrian bridge, you reach the Tempio di Giove (Temple of Jupiter). Meant to be the largest temple in the complex, it was never completed, but it would have occupied approximately the site of a soccer field. It was an unusual temple, with half columns backing into a continuous wall, and 25-foot-high telamon, or male figures, inserted in the gaps in between. A couple of the telamon have been roughly reassembled horizontally on the ground near the temple. Beyond is the so-called Temple of Castor and Pollux, prettily picturesque, but actually a folly created in the 19th century from various columns and architectural fragments.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, the twin hill towns of Cammerata and San Giovanni Gemini were famous throughout Sicily for their traveling ice cream and granita makers. The key to this ice-cream industry was the collection and preservation of snow, and a local family of ice-cream makers has restored several of the neviere, circular buildings resembling stone igloos, strewn over the forested slopes above the towns. Snow was shoveled into the neviere, trodden down until it turned to a thick layer of ice, then covered with a mat of rushes and straw before another layer of snow was added on top. Stored like this, the snow would keep frozen for months, and with the giant blocks of ice fetching the equivalent of €3,000, it had to be carefully guarded. The best way to see the neviere, learn how to make Sicilian granita, and visit a small private ice museum, is on a guided tour, which can include a lunch of cold cuts, local cheeses, and grilled meat and vegetables in a pretty family-run café.

Easy to miss behind the Temple dei Dioscuri, the Giardino della Kolymbetra is a sunken garden created within what was once a huge "tank" excavated in the stone on the orders of the Tyrant Theron in 480 BC. In time, it was transformed into a lush garden, irrigated by a series of little channels, a technique brought to Sicily by the Arabs, who had learned this craft in the deserts of North Africa. Now planted with citrus, olive, almond, pistachio, pomegranate, and even banana trees, it forms a true oasis, where often the only sound is that of running water.

First built in 1299, these cloisters and courtyard, up the hill above the Valle dei Templi near the modern city, are open to the public. However, most visitors stop by the adjacent abbey for a treat and tour of the church, so be sure to ring the doorbell and try the chewy almond cookies. On special occasions, there may be kus-kus dolce—a sweet dessert dish made from pistachio nuts, almonds, and chocolate—that the Cistercian nuns learned from Tunisian servants back in the 13th century.

Housed in a restored palace that originally belonged to the Chiaramonte, one of the most powerful noble families in Sicily, this museum's architecture is a wonderful testimony to Sicily's complex history, an appealing fusion of Romanesque, Byzantine, Norman, Gothic, and Spanish. Highlights are the Gothic chapterhouse and the old defensive tower; the holes in the faded Byzantine frescoes of saints were created by American soldiers billeted here during World War II, who needed pegs to hang their kits on. Best of all is the Ethnographic collection on the top floor. Formed entirely of bits and pieces donated by locals at the end of the 20th century, it offers fascinating and often funny insights into everyday life, with exhibits ranging from recipe books to an ammunition belt modified for school exams so that cheat notes could be rolled up and stored in the bullet pockets. 

Donnafugata, the country seat of the Salina family in Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s novel The Leopard, is a fictional place, but it's a fusion of Santa Margherita del Belice (where the Tomasi di Lampedusa palace was until destroyed by a 1968 earthquake) and the Chiesa Madre and Benedictine Convent in Palma di Montecchiaro. The town was founded in the 17th century by Tomasi di Lampedusa’s ancestors, at a time when Spain, who ruled Sicily, needed the island to be its main source of wheat. As rural Sicily was beset with banditry, and considered far too dangerous for individual families to live in isolated farmhouses, the Crown encouraged landowners to found new towns, where peasants could live in relative safety, heading out to the fields each day and returning at night, to live cheek-to-cheek with their animals in one story houses. These days it is a rather grim, dilapidated-looking place, but for fans of The Leopard, a visit to the convent to buy almond cookies from one of the four remaining nuns is an eerie experience, offering a brief glimpse of the hidden lives that have changed little in centuries.