shhs magazine - South Hampstead High School

SHHS Interiors:Layout 1 12/06/2011 22:04 Page 40Sicily 2009classicsSicily TripArriving in the entrance hall to Heathrow airport at5am may not sound like the best start to a trip, buteven at this time of the morning, spirits were high.The trip arrived in Palermo by early afternoon,just in time to visit Palermo Cathedral in thecentral square. The cathedral facade was magnificent,demonstrating a mixture of architecturalstyles influenced by the many civilisations who conqueredthe island. Inside the cathedral, there weremany beautiful paintings, and a lot of work had beendone on the cathedral recently, as the ceiling hadbecome dilapidated.That evening we sampled typical Sicilian cuisine:pasta with tomato sauce, veal in breadcrumbsand followed it up by ice cream in the seasideresort where we then went for a wonderful walkalong the seashore.The next day began with a slightly later startof 8am and we planned to go on a tour of the magnificenttheatre and temple at Segesta followed by avisit to the temples at Selinunte in the warm,autumn Sicilian sun. Instead, it poured. A few of usventured down to the stage at Segesta, wading40through the streams of water running down thesteps. Comfortingly, at the bottom there was someshelter from the gale. The view was amazing and theexperience made more memorable because we hadto shout to be heard by anyone more than a fewpaces away despite the fact that the theatre hadbeen designed so that a whisper could be heard byall three-thousand-two-hundred spectators.Thankfully, by the time we reachedSelinunte, the weather had improved. We dried offwhile scrambling over ruins of temples left overfrom millennia ago, posing on the tops of podiumsand columns. Once we were feeling dry, we set offto the coach, but ten metres from the door, theheavens opened once more, reducing us to todrowned water rats. We drove back to the hotel inrather low spirits, for our second night of pastawith tomato sauce and veal in breadcrumbs.On the third day, we were in Agrigento,home of twelve temples, lined along the hillside.Our first glimpse of them had been the previousevening when they were lit up like bonfires. Nowwe were to see them in daylight. It was another dayof scrambling over ancient ruins and marvelling atthe scale of the architecture. The views across thevalley were amazing, but nothing could comparewith the Temple of Concord, built in 5th CenturyBC. It stands tall and proud, at a distance from allthe other temples and it is still the best preservedDoric temple after the Pantheon. After spending thewhole day amongst the ruins and in a museum withall the artefacts, we headed back to the hotel forpasta and tomato sauce followed by veal in breadcrumbs.The fourth day was also spent in Agrigento,but seeing the fabulous mosaics in the Villa Romanadel Casale, built in the 3rd and 4th century AD. The