Ancient Sicily offers a glorious guide to classical Europe

“The archaeologist,” said Sir Mortimer Wheeler, one of the grand old men of archaeology, “is digging up, not things, but people.” The point about sites of antiquity is that, often surviving in a fragmented state, their meaning doesn’t immediately rear up and hit you between the eyes. It can be hard on a 21st century holiday to see a temple and imagine the priests and priestesses, the colours, the crowds, the ceremony and the sacrifices.

**Selinunte – ancient Greek archaeological site in Sicily, Italy [Credit: Chiara Marra]**

But tours with the specialist company Andante are led by archaeologists who understand how to translate the remains left by real people into the story of ancient lives, lived thousands of years ago.

Sicily’s archaeology is extremely high calibre. The island was at the centre of trade routes in the days when travel was often easiest via sea. Ancient empires, from the Greeks and Romans to the Moors and the Normans, cast covetous eyes upon Sicily and left an enduring imprint with a great many magnificent buildings.

When the Greeks arrived here shortly after the turn of the first millennium BC, they quickly settled and started building their magnificent stone temples on an enormous scale. At Agrigento, they were erected along a ridge to create an intimidating line of massive architecture visible from the sea, which remains visually arresting today.

At Syracuse — once occupied by the Corinthians and over which the Greeks and Romans waged a drawn-out war – much of the story is told by remaining monuments: temples, fortifications and the famous stone quarries which doubled as the final prison of thousands of enemy soldiers used as slaves, most of whom died.

All of ancient life is here; religious, military, those of vast fortune with their showy villas, as well as the gifted craftsmen and artists who made them.

In some places in Sicily, the archaeologist’s trained eye helps put together the less obvious clues to bring the place vividly back to life.

**The 12th century cathedral at Monreale is one of Sicily's most impressive sights [Credit: Telegraph]**

At others, such as the grand 12th-century Norman cathedral of Monreale, or in the private chapel of Roger of Sicily at the palace in Palermo — both decorated with glittering swathes of Byzantine mosaics — you put the brain on hold and simply succumb to the pulse-quickening visuals.

The Graeco-Roman theatre at Taormina, set against the formidable backdrop of Mount Etna, also takes some beating for sheer emotional impact.

Andante stresses the “knowledge worn lightly” aspect of these comprehensive tours of the island, and also offers a Relaxed Break here – seven days based in one lovely hotel on the island of Ortygia with your own archaeologist, as well as Andante With Independence, for those who want the archaeologist and the specialist arrangements, but less of the “group” aspect.

Sir Mortimer would have been proud — on every tour it is not the monuments that are the focus, but the people who made them.

Author: Jack Wilkinson | Source: The Telegraph/UK [February 03, 2012]