Happy May Day! It is a holiday here in Italy and people are out in droves. You would think we would remember this holiday since two years ago we spent May Day with millions of Chinese in Beijing!
We have had a terrible night at the Villa Adriana in San Leone. In addition to being very noisy our sheets are damp. It is incredible uncomfortable and impossible to sleep. We tell the eponymous Adriana that we are not staying another night. She reacts by acting like a wounded small animal and stands and stares at us during breakfast. Creepy.
Then it is off to the Valley of the Gods. Surprisingly the Valley is on a high bluff overlooking the coastal plain.
We spend a couple of hours looking at the various temples in fairly good shape given that they are 2500 years old. The area was sacked by the Carthaginians in around 400 BC. Some temples were pulled down but others were merely repurposed.
This place used to have an audio tour that explained what you were looking at and gave the history of the times. The audio guide is no longer available and all that is left are a few placards. This is the second time we have run up against the defunct audio guide problem. I wonder if they are in the midst of introducing some new sort of guide.
After our visit to the Valley of the Gods we go in search of lunch. Creepy Adriana has recommended the restaurant Ex Panificio as a place for authentic Sicilian food. I guess it is their interpretation of what they think tourists would like to eat because it is pretty much not authentic and caters to tour groups. A large Chinese tour group comes in shortly after we were seated. Among the bad food choices –
We decide for dinner we will get some panini and chips and wash it down with a bottle of red wine that Villa Ducale gave us.
Now we need to find our new hotel. There are not a lot of choices left due to it being May Day. I do find one that is at the train station. Actually it is in the train station adjacent to track #5. The hallways are reminiscent of train aisles and the windows overlook the action on the tracks. The trains are fairly unobtrusive except when one blows off some steam at 4:19 AM. It jolts all of us awake. But on the whole it is so much better than creepy Villa Adriana.
