By mommie2zs in The Year of Adventure — Aug 12, 2016

Italy Trip – Days 44 – 47 – Agrigento

We were so sorry to be leaving Ortigia. How could another location in Sicily measure up to the beauty, comfort, and learning we had done in this incredible place. Not only did we want to return, we didn’t want to leave.

But, leave we must.

We packed up our backpacks and food bags and walked across the bridge off the Island of Ortigia to the rental car location. It was another red Panda that would be our vehicle for the rest of our time in Sicily.

The rental car agent did us a huge favor by telling us to return the car at the airport in Catania because it would be easy to get a bus to take us to the train station. Returning it to the rental car station in Catania would mean an expensive taxi ride to the train station.

The kindness of strangers once again…

The drive wasn’t very long, but we’d had a little trouble connecting with the owner’s son for our next apartment home. We ended up parking at the local train station, and he and his girlfriend were able to find us there. We then followed them through the incredibly twisty-turny roads to our apartment. (More on these roads later.)

I found this beginning to a post I wrote right when we got to the Agrigento apartment, and it captures our excitement in this newest home:

We made the move from Syracusa to Agrigento yesterday. This week finds us in Sicily, which is a part of Italy, though it is often spoken of as if it is its own country. We’ll be on this island until Monday when we board the train to Rome for our last week in Italy.

The drive was a leisurely 3 hours with the children squished in the back of yet another Panda.

Why yes, I would like to sit in your pocket.

We were met at the train station by the son of our host so he and his girlfriend could lead us to the apartment which was up and down a warren of one-way roads. This was the most intense driving I’ve done so far, and I’m glad we are only here for two days, but the apartment is amazing.

We are the very first visitors staying in this completely refurbished home. We’re on the top floors and the bottom is still being redone. (Interesting note to self: Our door to our upstairs apartment is on an entirely different street from the people downstairs. That just occurred to me.)

The "intersection" closest to our front door. — The “intersection” closest to our front door.

In part because we are only here two days, this is the location where it feels most likely that we’ll get lost. It’s an absolute labyrinth up in here.

But inside the house is a sheer delight. Here’s the AirBnB posting.

We took extra pictures here because there are parts we’d love to emulate.

Book case and stairs to the left of the entrance to the living room.

Looking at the bookcase while standing in front of the fire place.

Looking back toward the kitchen. Front entrance hallway and stairs on the right.

(Disclosure: I took all these pictures on Buddie’s phone. My glasses were lost sometime around Venice, and I’m realizing all these pictures are blurry because I was holding the phone too close to my face to be able to tell they were blurry. Jeesh, eyes…)

On to more pictures:

The bottles of water in the fridge alerted us that drinking water from the faucet was not a good option.

We didn’t know what these were at the time:

We were to learn at our next Sicilian home that they were Prickly Pear, and are beloved in Sicily. After we knew what to look for, we saw them everywhere:

Monkey's bedroom. Dad added for scale. — Monkey’s bedroom. Dad added for scale.

Downstairs bathroom. It was very orange.

Upstairs living room. Yessa stuffies enjoyed the crib.

Loved the soaking tub and burnt umber tile.

This apartment was gorgeous. It was in an ancient (truly) section of town, and the doors we walked past to get here gave testament to that.

As much as we loved this space, we’ve got to take a minute to discuss the drive to get to this gorgeous apartment.

As I mentioned above, this was the most harrowing driving we’d done. Steep hills, one-way roads, blind corners, and incredibly tight spaces. My heart palpitates thinking about it even now…10 months later.

Here’s a visual to try to explain:

If you click on the picture above to make it larger, you can see there was parking very close to the apartment. That’s where our host led us for our initial unload.

Here’s an example of the streets we drove up to get to the apartment parking spot:

Steep, tight, and if you met a car coming down, a battle of wills over who would back up to let the other pass.

So, after we went out for our tour of the Valley of the Temples (More on that shortly.), our tour guide led us to a different place to park. It was a long walk, but it didn’t give me stomach pangs, so it was a win.

Enough of the traumatic driving experience, on to the beauty of Agrigento.

The highlight of this stop was a tour of The Valley Of The Temples.

We had a wonderful tour guide here, yet I cannot remember her name because I only got about an hour with her. Buster and Yessa were done after that time, so we left Buds and Monkey to enjoy the remainder of the tour in peace while we headed back to the car to snuggle in with games and stories.