While You're in Sicily, Go See Some Ruins

You should go see some ruins when in Sicily.  You should go because most everything cool in Siciliy was orginally founded by the Greeks.  If the Greeks didn’t start it, they took over the place after the Phoenicians left and before the Romans came in.  Solunto is just such a place, an easy daytrip from Palermo.

Perhaps the best Greek ruins on Sicily are in a place called Agrigento, absolutley amazing, a large complex with structures looking like the Acropolis.  But that’s at least a few hours away from wherever you’re staying, so you need to plan well.  It’s day-trippable from several locations such as Palermo, but it’s a very long day involving hours of transportation.  But there are other ruins.

I love ruins.  Perhaps because I live in the USA and we don’t have anything very old.  A 100-year-old house is historic here.  For us, a 2,000-year-old city seems amazing, a dream.  Before planning my trip to Sicily, I had no idea how many Phoenician, Greek, and Roman ruins were still around on the island.  Any “best of” list of Sicily will include a few, probably Agrigento or Segesta.

Some ancient ruins survive within the popular Sicilian cities.  Taormina has a magnificent Greek theater in the middle of town.  Siracusa has what’s left of an old Greek temple also in the middle of town, and numerous other ruins, including an even bigger theater, within walking distance of the old city.

Still, getting a sense of an old Greek ruin means seeing a spot that was a city, not just an old theater or a temple.  It means walking around what once was city streets, and is still its own place, not just an old relic sitting in a modern city.  For that you need to head into the countryside.  One great candidate is Solunto.

Solunto is not only its own little city, but it’s close to Palermo and situated in a rather striking setting.  The Poenicians and those Greeks knew how to position something for effect.  It sits 600 meters above sea level on a hill called Monte Catalfano, and you need to hike up to it.  It’s rather accessable, right on the main train line, but still makes you work a bit to appreciate it.

Getting there

Solunto is not only an easy daytrip, but even a half-daytrip.  It could be done from Palermo or the popular beachside town of Cefalù.  I went from Palermo, was done with Solunto by lunchtime, and went on to visit Cefalù before heading back to Palermo early that evening.  It was a brilliant day.

For Solunto, head to the train station in either town.  A train leaves hourly for the Santa Flavia-Solunto-Porticello stop, costing only a few euro.  Use the cool touch screens in the station to get your ticket, and be sure to use the second, small, wall-mounted machine near the platforms to validate your ticket before you board.  I don’t know why that second step is needed; seems one machine could be easily programmed to perform two functions, but no one ever asks me these things.

To validate your ticket, insert it into the small machine by the tracks, lining it up on the side by using the arrow.  For some reason (common sense), I had trouble doing this and needed help.  The kindness of strangers is wonderful.

From Palermo, get a window seat on the left to catch the sea views as you chug along (right side from Cefalù).  You’re only on the train for about twenty minutes from Palermo or forty from Cefalù, so no need to port a very thick novel with you.  My journey there was taken up when two Mormon missionaries decided to sit with me and ask me what I knew about their religion.  I summoned my inner Christopher Hitchens and surprised them with some debate points, but it was not an unpleasant ride.

Once at the tiny Santa Flavia-Solunto-Porticello station, follow these walking directions:  exit the station (that’s the easy first step).  Your back will be to the sea.  Turn right and then immediately right again on the first road just past the end of the station, so now you are facing the sea.  You’ll cross the tracks.  Walk a bit along the road, Corso Filangeri, past a seafood restaurant and many other small buildings.  After 200 meters or so, a left turn is marked with a sign, to Solunto.  From there, just follow the road, straight through a highway intersection, approaching the hill.  The road is not made for walking, so watch for cars.

The road will start winding and climbing and here’s where you will earn your eventual views.  You may have doubts you’re on the correct road, but there are not many ways to to make a mistake.  Keep looking uphill and eventually you’ll spot the ruins.

Or, if you’re driving, there’s plenty of parking at the top of the road.

Solunto charges a token fee to see the place, a handful of euro.  You pass through a building that looks like a successful family’s mountainside trophy house.  It has no whiff of officialdom at all.  A nice lady is sitting at a desk inside, up some stairs, and then she’ll direct you immediately back outside through another door, and up a path and you’re in the town.

The town

The little city was Phoenician, one of their three main cities in Sicily, built around 700 BCE.  The Greeks came in 397 BCE and sacked the place, then rebuilt it a year later.  Okay, now you’re Greek, but it passed through many hands on the way to being Roman.  It probably wasn’t abandoned completely until the Moors came in, but the decline started hundreds of years before that.  The excavations today show mostly Roman-era stuff.

The town has been leveled by time.  This is not Macchu Piccu or Pompei, with clear indications of the buildings.  The Romans built a grid-like street plan, leading to what was the market.  Only a few structures have even part of their walls remaining.  Mostly you’re walking around foundations.  You’ll see pillars, columns, walls, even water systems, but only in a few places, and there are no buildings intact, not even close.

Yet it’s beautiful here.  Besides the very strong sense of place you’ll experience here, the side benefit of visiting this spot are the amazing coastal views.  These ancient people knew where to locate a town.  Solunto is somewhat of a outcrop on the corner of the hill, so two of its borders are the hill sloping down to the Tyrrhenian Sea.  The coastline is jagged and for part of the sea, low mountains are in the far background.  It’s all so dramatic and damn it’s gorgeous.  A picnic would not be out of place here.  A small, modern fishing village called Porticello sits at sea level below, and in the far corner of Solunto, I found the best view of all.

I bet half the visitors to this town miss this view.  One must go to the top of the village, the corner farthest away from where you walked in, and then go through some trees and brush.  Your reward is a knockout view of a small village below called Capo Zafferano that must be one of the most dramaticly-placed in the country.  A peninsula sticks out , curved but not high, and then rises into a small mountain at its point.  On the curved part before it rises is the village.  It was stunning to me for the surprise factor, and how nice it would be for you to be surprised by it, but I can’t take the chance of you missing it.  I bet life there is either really hard or really cool.

The view from Solunto to Capo Zafferano

Solunto is half-flat and half on the sloping hillside.  The flat part has a few outcrops reaching towards the fishing village Porticello below, upon which various crosses and perhaps mini-shrines have been placed, obvsiouly in more modern times.  The slope reaches fairly high and I climbed up on its pathway.  A modern house-like building sits on the top, surely related to today’s maintenance and restoration needs.  On the back side of the hill, after Solunto runs out, one can look along the shore towards Palermo.

Solunto’s must-see is right in the center, the only building having columns.  Once mistakenly labeled as the Gymnamsium, it has now been identified as a patrician resident.  Ancient doric columns still stand here, along with a broken section of entablature.  Nearby is the Casa di Leda, where one can still see the old fresco of Zeus in disguise as a goose, wooing yet another mortal woman.  Other places have the remains of frescos on the floor.

So what?

I visited Solunto in late July, high season.  I saw only two other people during my visit.  We three were never close to each other and never interacted.  Unlike some other ruins, this place is almost all yours.

At the end, as you exit, you’ll pass through a very small museum on the place.  There’s a bathroom and vending machine for drinks, which was very welcome for me in sunny July.  Sicily is boiling in the summer, so pack a hat and some sun cream.

The visit will perhaps take you an hour or two, plenty of time for something else that day, something more modern perhaps after this antiquity fix.  Italian cities, even smaller ones such as Cefalù, are packed and noisy.  One become accustomed to crowds, to the senses being bombarded.  In Solunto, there’s only an ancient peace.

While you’re in Sicily, check out the best sandwich maker in the world, and learn why the markets can cause you to change your plans entirely.

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