Segesta is an ancient Elymian site with a tremendous theater and temple. The Elymians were one of the indigenous peoples that inhabited the island prior to the Phoenicians. It is believed that the temple was built to impress Greek visitors from Athens, but never completed. The views of the temple and surrounding rural landscape of western Sicily were amazing and provided an interesting counterpoint to urban, gritty Palermo.
Tuesday, June 21
For our departure from Palermo, we decided to wear our Rick Steves t-shirts (Keep on Travelin’—you can see us all dressed up in our travel best on the About page). We had our last Palermitan rooftop breakfast (cappuccinos, apricots, peaches, orange cake, yogurt with chocolate and hazelnut granola), made a final Lidl pitstop for water, and then boarded the bus for Segesta, heading east—passing by lots of mountains and a flock of sheep!
At Segesta, we first took a shuttle bus up to the hilltop theater, as it was too hot to walk uphill). The area has been settled by the Elymians, who were originally from Troy. The theater, large enough for 3,500 people, had amazing views of Sicily’s rural, rolling hills.
On the way down from the theater, there were fantastic views down into the valley below of the Doric temple of Segesta, believed to have been built by the Elymians to get the Athenians on their side and to impress the Greeks so they might help them to fight Selinunte, a nearby town.
The temple had never been finished (no fluting on the columns, and no roof), but it was in amazing shape and very complete (better preserved than a lot of what you see in Greece). It was very neat to walk all around it, surrounded by the Sicilian hills and with few other visitors besides our group.
Hays in Sicily 