Vicenza - The City of Andrea Palladio

Vicenza is a small and beautiful city. Its name is linked to Andrea Palladio, one of the most influential medieval architects whose works and ideas continue to inspire architects even today. This post is about a walking tour of Vicenza and an introduction to some of the works of Andrea Palladio.

The image above is from the Marine monument near the railway station of Vicenza. Some one had put a christmas cap on the head of Antonio Pigafetta's statue, one of the mariners on the Portuguese ship that went around the world in 1521-22 AD.

Vicenza is on the railway line connecting Venice to Verona and Milan. Usually people visit Venice and then go to Verona for its connection to the Romeo-Juliet story. However, if you have a little time, I recommend that you visit Vicenza and Padova (Padua) on the way - both cities are worth a visit.

Andrea Palladio

Andrea Palladio was born as Andrea di Pietro in Padua in 1508 and his father had a flour mill. When he was 13 years old he came to Vicenza to work as a stone cutter and then as a mason. From this lowly job he rose up to become one of the most admired architects of his time and wrote 4 important books to explain his principles and ideas about architecture.

The statue of Andrea Palladio shown below is from the main city square called Piazza della Signoria (Square of the Lords) in Vicenza.

After his death, Palladio's name slowly became famous in the English speaking world where his follower architects called themselves as Palladians. A few years ago, on the occasion of a Palladian exhibition in UK, Jonathan Glancy had written an article about Palladio in The Guardian - The stonecutter who shook the world. Palladio brought back the Roman style of architecture (based on the classical Greek), focusing on symmetery, essential clean lines and grace, avoiding heavy embellishments.

Villa Rotunda, one of Palladio's creations just outside Vicenza (shown in the image below) is one of his more famous buildings. It has inspired a number of important buildings around the world including the White House in USA.

The main city square of Vicenza, Piazza dei Signori, is rectangular with a green domed Basilica (Court house) built by Palladio on one side (shown in the image below). In this building you can see the style of windows that became famous as Palladian windows, with a central arched opening in the middle, and narrower, flat roofed openings on the two sides.

At one end of the square, two towers carry the symbols of the Venetian republic, of which Vicenza was an important part in the medieval period.

On the other end of the square, opposite the Basilica is another of Palladio's creations - the lodge of Capitanio, that now hosts the municiple assembly.

A short distance away from the Basilica, is the Academic Theatre (Teatro Academico), another of Palladio's creations.

City has many other buildings by Palladio including a Palladio museum. Some other buildings, such as the Valmarana lodge (in the image below) in the beautiful Salvi gardens, carry unmistakable signs of Palladio's influence.

To honour Palladio, the central street of the old part of Vicenza is called Corso Palladio. Flanked by beautiful shops, medieval buildings and sculptures, it is the street where Vicentini (people of Vicenza) come out for their walk on the weekends.

Other places to Visit in Vicenza

The pink coloured medieval cathedral of Vicenza (il Duomo) is worth a visit. Its dome was also designed by Palladio.

The cathedral has a number of beautiful paintings such as the one shown below (by Bartolomeo Montagna from early sixteenth century).

Another important church of Vicenza, just off Corso Palladio, is Santa Corona (Holy crown). Palladio is buried here and he had also designed parts of this church.

Santa Corona church is full of wonderful paintings like the one shown below (by Gianbattista Pittoni).

Another nice place to visit in Vicenza is the wonderful Querini gardens with a canal, water birds and medieval statues.

San Michele bridge, also called the old bridge, from sixteenth century is closed to the traffic and is a romantic looking place.

Around San Michele bridge and just behind the Basilica is the oldest part of the city.

San Lorenzo church from 13th century is one of the older churches of Vicenza.

Close to the city, behind the railway station is a small hill called Monte Berico that has the Monte Berico church, built at a place where a peasant had seen the Madonna in 15th century. Going up the hill along a passage covered with archways, is a wonderful way to look at the snow-covered Alps mountains surrounding Vicenza and for the beautiful panoramas of the city, as shown in the images below.

In the panoramic view of Vicenza seen in the image below, you can easily see the green dome shaped roof of Palladio's Basilica.

Parts of Vicenza shown in these pictures are all situated in a relatively small area and are easy to visit on a walking tour, starting from the railway station.

The last image of this walking tour has a wonderful sculpture by a Vicentini artist called Nereo Quagliato and in it, you can also see the dome of the Cathedral,designed by Andrea Palladio.

When you visit Vicenza, works of Palladio accompany you every where. If you have time you can even join tours that take you to the different villas designed by Palladio in the surrounding small towns and countrysides. I have been told that it is a wonderful tour with wonderful views of vineyards.

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Artists working together

Nicola Zamboni and Sara Bolzani are two Italian sculptors. I like their works very much. In May 2013, I had the opportunity to visit them and to learn about them and their art. This is the last part of that interview.

Sunil: Sara, tell me about your artistic journey, how did you decide to be a sculptor?

Sara: At high school level I went to the art school in Monza. There I had a good teacher who did clay modelling and sculpture, so I got into it. He literally forced me to go to the Brera art academy in Milan. For the first 2 years I was with Prof. Giancarlo Marchese, but I was not feeling creatively happy with him. For the first year he made me do only sketching, without ever touching the clay and I did not like it. At that time I already had a studio and I was doing sculptures. Then in 1997, in the third year I went to some lessons with Nicola, and from the first lesson, I wanted to work with him. Luckily, it worked out and I could shift my classes. He told me to work with bronze, and once I did that, I fell in love with it. Two of my important works in that period were in Bronze, and I did my thesis on Nicola.

At that time I was also working as a waitress because I needed money to buy materials for my art. Nicola told me to give up that work and he gave me some work like making holes in the leaves, making small sculptures of fishes, etc. and he paid me. Some time after finishing the academy I started living with him.

Nicola: The personal thing between us, it happened when she was out of the academy and was no longer my student. I think that it is important to clarify it since I don't think that teacher can have relationships with their students, it would not be correct professional behaviour.

Sara: So now each of us has our own individual work but we collaborate when we make sculptures for public spaces. "The Humanity" project started in 2003. It started as a project for a school but we could not manage it, but then we continued with it for many years up to 2008-09. Since then, because of the crisis it has got a little slowed down.

Since 2001 after our first journey in India, I am also working on the theme of women.

Sunil: How do you influence each other? Do you influence each other?

Nicola: Surely we influence each other. To be in love is necessary for creating art, it becomes the oxygen that you breathe. There are things we share, like our love for travelling, our love for food, our way of living. It all influences the way we work and the kind of things we make. However, we don't share similar taste in music, I love classical music while she loves Bruce Springsteen and Vasco Rossi.

Sara: Perhaps that is a generational thing.

Nicola: It is not generational, I was like this when I was twenty. My son, he is forty, he also loves classical music.

Sara: But the world has changed, your twenty years were very different from my twenty years. Coming to the questioning of reciprocal influence, in the initial phase of our work, we do sit together and ask each other's opinion.

Nicola: We are very honest in giving opinion to each other.

Sara: Suppose he makes a horse, I can tell him that in my opinion, the neck is too long or he says that the arm of the my sculpture is too thin in this part.. so we criticise each other's work. We recognise that there are some things that he is good at and I am not so good, there are other things that I can make better. So in our joint works, we keep account of these things.

Nicola: In some human figures in bronze, she is really good, even if I try I can't match her.

Sunil: Apart from India, was there any other journey that has influenced your work?

Sara: Even our journey to Cambodia was significant, in terms of female figures. The influence of Africa has been much less. But some journeys like from this last journey in India, there are things that will remain in my heart for ever. Kumar, our guide, took us to the village of his wife. There the headman, an elderly person with white beard, he washed our feet as a sign of welcome. I was so embarrassed and at the same time, it touched me very deeply. It was an emotional experience very different from the experiences of other journeys. For example, once we were in Mexico and went to a catholic church, where the floor was covered with pine needles, and every where they had statues of saints. Another strange thing was that people were drinking coke and making loud hiccups, so it was a church prayer with some strange rituals. I can remember that experience with pleasure but it did not touch me emotionally like this journey to India touched me. They have influenced our work most.

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Nicola has made two sculptures of Sara. In one, she is lying down nude, her arms up holding a big fish. In another sculpture, Sara is surrounded by stalks of tall weed or thin bamboo like plants, holding her a prisoner, and she is followed by a figure in a veil.

Sara has also made a sculpture of Nicola. In this, a weaver (Sara) is making a quilt and in the quilt, there is Nicola's face made with metal wires.

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Read more about Nicola Zamboni & Sara Bolzani

An Introduction to Nicola Zamboni and Sara Bolzani

Meet the artist: Sara Bolzani

Meet the artist: Nicola Zamboni

Becoming a woman

The 2011 film by the dutch director Susan Koenen, "I am a girl" (original title: Ik ben een meisje) is about a 13 year old girl, Joppe, her growing up and her crush on a boy. Joppe was born a boy and the film touches on her journey to become a woman.

Story

Joppe has braces, long hair and a beautiful smile. Like her friends, she also dreams of love. She has a crush on Brian, but he does not answer her gestures for going out with her. Then one day Joppe hears from her friends that Brian is going out with another girl and she is sad. "I won't let it keep me down, life will go on", she tells her friends.

At the background of this simple tale of a teenage crush and growing up pains, is the story of Joppe's transformation from a boy to a girl, who wants to become a woman.

Comments

It is a simple film told in a simple way. At one level Joppe's journey of transformation from a boy to a girl seems almost painless. As a very young child she decided that she preferred to be a girl. Initially her family did not agree, but then they accepted her decision and in 5th standard (final year of primary school) she started this journey of transformation.

In the school it seems that Joppe has no problems from her classmates or from other young people. She spends her time with her friends. And when she goes to the middle school, she explains to her classmates about herself, so that everyone knows about what she is going through.

Joppe starts receiving injectable medicines that can stop her body from producing the male hormone, so that her body will not have the typical changes that occur in the boys during puberty - such as deepening of voice, growth of facial and body hair and growth of genitals.

Joppe knows what will be the path of her transformation. When Joppe will be sixteen years old, she can start receiving female hormones so that her body can start having the changes that girls get at puberty - such as more fat on the thighs and buttocks, and development of breasts. Later she will go through surgery so that her genitals will take the female form.

Joppe's journey of transformation is not completely painless though as her experience with Brian shows. Young people in her community may not be cruel or discriminatory to her, but at the same time, she is seen as different and at the beginning of any new relationship with a boy or a man, she will need to face the dilemma of "Can I tell him that I was born a boy?" and then let the boy/man decide if he wishes to continue that relationship.

She is aware that though she can wear a bikini and go to the swimming pool with her friends, she is also a little anxious if others can make out the difference. In the bathroom of the swimming pool, she sees other girls with their growing breasts and the feminine curves, and worries about her own flat chest and curveless body.

Most of all, Joppe is aware that "becoming a woman" is not a journey with an end point, but rather, it is a life long journey where she has to keep on becoming and transforming. And on this journey, she will have to face many other challenges.

About one day making a family with a man, Joppe says, "If he would wish for a family with children, perhaps he can have a child with a surrogate mother. It will be only his biological child, but I won't mind it so much."

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You can watch "I am a girl" with English subtitles on Aeon Film website - it is free of charge.

Credits
Ik ben een meisje
Director: Susan Koenen
Producer: Albert Klein Haneveld
Editor: Denise Janzée, Susan Koenen
Cinematographer: Reinout Steenhuizen
Sound: Bouwe Mulder

Running Time: 15 minutes
Language: Dutch with English subtitles
Website: www.ikbeneenmeisje.nl

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Art for Public Places - Nicola Zamboni

In May 2013, I met the Italian sculptor duo, Nicola Zamboni and Sara Bolzani. Nicola believes in art for public spaces rather than art for rich individuals or for museums. Here are some excerpts of our conversation.

Sunil: Nicola lets start with you. Please tell me about how did you decide to become a sculptor and which experiences shaped you as an artist?

Nicola: From the childhood I was interested in sculpture and painting. My father, who was a factory worker, wanted me to become an accountant, so I did go to the accountancy school, but I was not good at studies. At the time of my final exam, the president of the commission was a person who knew me, said that we shall pass you but you have to promise us two things - one that you will make a bust of Marconi (our school was called named after him) for the school and second, you will never work as an accountant!

Actually I did work briefly as an accountant, but after a few months, the owner told me that it would be better for me to do something else. So I went to the art academy but I did not finish it. During the third year of art college, I went to UK at Henry Moore's house for one month and when I came back to Bologna, I did not want to study any more. At the school we had a good teacher, prof. Ghirmandi, he asked me to become his assistant. Since then I have spent all my life as a sculptor.

Today I find persons who have no preparation or experience, but after 2 days of art work they want to be recognised as artists or sculptors!

Sunil: So you think that formal art training is important for an artist?

Nicola: I think that you need to have talent as an artist but you also need to work hard and practice your skills. With a lot of hard work and discipline, even with little talent you can reach good results. Others can reach good results because they have a lot of talent though they do not have enough discipline. But generally speaking, you need a little talent and a lot of discipline and hard work to be a good artist.

Sunil: I have seen your works in terracotta, stone and metal - which is your favourite material?

Nicola: I like all the different materials, each has its own characteristics that are unique and that you have learn to understand and discover. My desire was to create works that can be displayed in public spaces, especially in spaces of the marginalised people and peripheries, so I always try to adapt my working materials to the economic possibilities of those who can commission my work. I also need to think of the place where the art will be displayed, in selecting the materials. For example, for the sculptures in Parco Pasolini in Pilastro area of Bologna, they did not have lot of money and the work was huge. I was supposed to create sculptures of a long line of persons going to the theatre spread over 500 meters, so I used mostly cement and a little stone. I made persons without faces, without features, who as they reach the theatre acquire features and become full persons. Those sculptures also included a theatre with seats, but 5-6 years ago the municipality decided to cover that part of my work and now it is gone.

Sometimes, vandals can deface your work in public spaces, but usually it is the institutions that suddenly decide to destroy art in public places.

Sunil: Why did you choose to make art for public spaces?

Nicola: I don't like the idea of rich persons keeping my art hidden away where no one looks at it, except may be for their Dobermans, who piss on it regularly in their gardens, and only once in a while some person will look at it. In the big museums, you find all kinds of art works put together, you have to look at them all at one time, one after another. On the other hand, the art, especially sculptures, need to interact with the people and the city spaces, it is part of the city life. Society needs to look at the art and say what do they think of it. Society needs to tell the artist what it appreciates in art, there should be a dialogue between the artist and the city. So every space, every context, needs it own style of art and this is a challenge for the artist - you need to think of the spaces and find artistic idea for that space, rather than having your own style of art that you put up every where.

Sunil: If you look backwards on your works, do you see some kind of evolution?

Nicola: When I had come back to Bologna after staying with Henry Moore, I was in love with him and for some time, all my works resembled his. I feel that we are always influenced by works of others, there is nothing that comes out of no where, you always find inspirations in the life around you and in the works of others. Thus, started a period of experimentation for me. For one year, I asked a construction company to work with them. During that one year, I was using their materials - stones, cement, wood, anything that caught my fancy, and I worked on it. So I got my materials and in exchange they got all my art works and these were put up in different parts of Bologna and San Lazzaro (suburb of Bologna). During that year I felt that contemporary art was not the right style for Bologna - after a few years, the contemporary sculptures do not fit in the city spaces any more. So I turned towards more classical figures for my sculptures.

Many of those sculptures in public spaces, are now in a bad condition, but that is the risk of making public works, to be a street artist is not easy for your art. In a museum, your art is safe and people take care of it. Destruction of my art work is part of their life cycles. I accept it. However when institutions, deliberately destroy my art, that hurts me. In Via Larga in Bologna, near the mall, I had built about 120 sculptures. There were sculptures of some well known people among them. However, some 7-8 years ago, they destroyed all of them and that hurt me. Only some pictures remain of that monumental work.

Sunil: Among all your works, do you feel especially close to some specific work?

Nicola: The group of bronze sculptures that I am making now with Sara, "The Humanity" that is very close to my heart. It is an allegory for modern times. It has figures of those who are killing others, destroying things, destroying their animals. It also has those who are trying to run away, to escape with their miserly belongings and their dreams.

Sunil: When I had seen the exhibition of "The Humanity", I had thought that it represented a medieval war.

Nicola: It is an allegory about modern times but I chose medieval style for its representation since warriors with their medieval dresses and armors express strongly the differences between those who kill and the other simple persons. If I had made them with modern clothes, it was more difficult to express this concept. These persons hide their faces behind armors, masks and shields, so that they are no longer persons, but they turn into things. That mask and armor can mean a bank account, some secret group, some power - so those sculptures are not about a medieval war, rather medieval war is a symbolism for what is happening in the world today.

Like there are the animals in those sculptures, they have been pulled into this war, and they are also the unfortunate victims of this war. To show all this, I decided to express myself through an allegory. It is not only men who are destroyers, there also some women also, dressed as warriors in this work.

Sunil: And the women covered with veils where you can see only their eyes?

Sara: They are part of the victims, those who are trying to escape this war, the refugees.

Nicola: Once we went for holidays at a seaside resort in the middle east. There were American and German women who were walking around in bikini and then there were local women, covered from head to feet.

Sara: These two very contrasting ways of dressing brought together in one place, it was a strange and powerful sight. A very strange kind of fashion show.

Nicola: I liked it very much, this contrasting visual, though I must say that I believe in the freedom of choice, that people must be able to choose what they wish to wear. At the same time, I think that it is worse when people forget their customs and become homogenized. For example on the TV to see the leader of China dressed exactly like the leader of USA or France, that seems so strange to me!

Sara: Even in Africa, where traditions are lost and a lot of persons dress like westerners, though fortunately there are some people who still wear their traditional dresses.

Nicola: There are some paintings from Venice from the 15th century, where you can see persons from different parts of the world - the Arabs, the Jews, the Indians, each with their own way of dressing. It is so beautiful. I think that differences of costumes is a beautiful richness of our humanity, providing that people have a choice in deciding what they wish to wear and are not forced to do it in a certain way.

Sunil: This opera "The Humanity" how do you see it, already complete or you still making new sculptures for it?

Nicola: As long as I will have strength in my body, I will keep on making new sculptures to add to the Humanity. However, now I want to focus only on making the sculptures of persons who are the victims of this war, who are trying to run away to save their lives and livelihoods. These sculptures of "The Humanity" have already been to four exhibitions - first in Modena, then in Arezzo, then in Accursio palace in Bologna, then in Piazza dell'Unità in Bologna.

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Read the first 2 Parts of this Post

Part 1: An Introduction to Nicola Zamboni & Sara Bolzani

Part 2: Meet the artist & sculptor Sara Bolzani

Sara Bolzani: Inspired by India

Nicola Zamboni and Sara Bolzani are two Italian sculptors. I like their works very much. In May 2013, I had the opportunity to visit them and talk to them about their art. This post is about their visits to India and how India has inspired some of Sara's sculptures.

Nicola and Sara live in Sala Bolognese, a small rural town to the north of Bologna. In the middle of the farm houses, their house also seems like a usual farm house.

When we reached their home, Nicola was waiting for us in his studio on the ground floor. He took us up to the first floor where they live and where Sara was also waiting for us. They had just been in India at the Maha Kumbh Mela in Allahabad and then had been to visit Varanasi. The visit had had a strong impact on them and ideas of India had influenced Sara's recent art works. So our conversations started with India.

Here are some excerpts from this conversation:

Sara: My series on sculptures of women started from a journey to India, more than 10 years ago, when we had gone to Rajasthan. I like very much the way women wear sari in India.

Nicola: In India I thought that Sara looked so Indian and we met one person who was so much like her brother.

Sara: In India my skin had become darker and many people thought that I was an Indian so they spoke to me in Hindi. I really wanted us to stay on in India for a longer period and work with some Indian artists, but we had no contacts with any artists there. I am also interested in learning more about Hindu mythology because I feel that can be an inspiration for my work. I was told about the different gods and how each god and goddess is linked to an animal, I want to explore this relationship. I need to find some easy to understand book. I tried with Bhagvad Geeta but it is just too difficult and it does not talk about the different gods. I have done some work on Greek mythological figures like Antigone. I like expressing those stories through my sculptures.

Sunil: In Bologna, there is a significant Bengali community and they organise Durga Puja every year at Centro Zonarelli, so that can be an opportunity for you to observe some of the Hindu mythologies directly rather than reading about them in books. That sculpture (pointing to a sculpture in the room) with the tiger and the woman seems inspired by the figure of Durga in Hindu mythology.

Sara: Actually that sculpture is linked to a daytime dream that I had many years ago. It was a vivid dream, very strong and very emotional. I was going from house to Milan and I was in a hurry, suddenly I felt as I had turned into a tiger, and I was running on four legs. It was such a powerful feeling. I have tried to express that feeling in this sculpture of the tiger and the woman.

I made it three years ago and a person who collects our works wanted it but for a long time I did not want to see it, I felt that it was very personal. In the end, I made a copy of those sculptures and sold it. Then another collector bought only the woman, so I copied the woman's sculpture. Now another collector wants both of them, so I have to make a copy of both the figures because I always want this sculpture with me to remind me of that vivid dream.

However, my last work has been inspired from India. I had seen a woman with a plate in her hand and I thought that it was a wonderful inspiration for a sculpture. So after coming back from the Kumbh mela trip, I have made this woman with a plate in her hand. I finished it last week and now it is being exhibited in a church.

Here are some images of Sara's works including the woman with the tiger and two of her India inspired works.

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Read More About Nicola Zamboni & Sara Bolzani

An Introduction to Nicola Zamboni & Sara Bolzoni

Meet the artist: Nicola Zamboni

Working together Nicola and Sara

Castelvetrano and the Greek ruins of Selinunte (2)

The Greek empire predates the Roman empire and is considered as the beginning of the western civilisation. Around 700 BC, Greeks colonised parts of the Sicily island in the south of Italy. This post is about the ruins of that Greek empire in a place called Selinunte, near the city of Castelvetrano.

South West part of Asia (Middle east), neighbouring Africa and the countries surrounding the Mediterranean sea played an important role in the beginning of human development with Mesopotamian, Babylonian, Assyrian and Egyptian civilisations. The first agricultural societies and skills like writing developed in this part of the world. These civilisations had close contacts with civilisations developing in the east, especially in India and China.

The rise and fall of the Greek civilisation was part of this process. The Greek empire began in 800 BC and lasted for about 3 centuries, being replaced by the Persian Achemenid empire. Greeks gained ascendence once again with Alexander in the fourth century BC, who extended his empire to the western boundaries of India. However soon after Alexander, the Roman empire began to dominate this region.

Selinunte in western part of Sicily holds some magnificent signs of the early Greek Empire, that had a strong influence on the Romans, defining their cultural, religious and aesthetic ideas. When Roman empire grew into northern and eastern Europe, it took those Greek ideas to all its new colonies, influencing their cultural ideas. Thus Greek civilisation is considered as the mother of the Western civilisation and the basis of the "classical" culture.

Greeks in Selinunte

The first Greek colonies in eastern Sicily came up in the eighth century BC. Over the seventh century BC, many colonies extended towards the west. Selinunte, near the Selinus river (called so because of wild celery growing there and in Greek, celery is called "selinon") , became one of the biggest Greek cities in Western parts of the island.

However, across the sea in what is now Tunis, Punic groups (of Phoenician origins) had established the Carthage empire and there were frequent fights between the Sicilian Greeks and the Carthage. Around fifth century BC as the power of the Greek empire waned, Punics occupied and destroyed Selinunte. In second centry BC, Carthage was occupied and destroyed by Romans and thus, Selinunte was definitely abandoned.

The remaining magnificent buildings of Selinunte were destroyed by an earthquake sometime around seventh-ninth century AD. In 20th century, a few of the buildings of Selinunte have been reconstructed using the stones from the ruins.

A Visit to Selinunte

While in Castelvetrano, one morning I was free for a couple of hours, so I asked my friend Piero to accompany me to Selinunte, about 12 km from Castelvetrano. Piero has a house in Selinunte and was happy to oblige me.

Selinunte archaeological area is huge and requires at least a day for a proper visit. In the couple of hours we had, a full visit was not possible. Thus we limited our visit to the temple and ruins at the eastern hill and then to some parts of the Acropolis. Our walking tour is shown in red in the map below.

City of Selinunte

Selinunte is a seaside town where many of my friends in Castelvetrano had their holiday homes, where they usually spend some months in the summer. Here is glimpse of the Marinella part of Selinunte houses close to the sea.

Eastern Hill of Selinunte Archaeological Park

The main city of 7th century BC Selinunte was in the south, closer to the seaside, at the Acropolis. However, some important temples and buildings were built at the Eastern hill. One such building, the Temple of Hera, has been rebuilt partially and gives an idea of the way this place must have looked before its destruction.

Similar to the Parthenon in Athens, the temple is built on a raised rectangular platform with stairs all around it. It is surrounded by 16 columns on the longer sides and 4 central columns on the short sides. The columns are Doric - this means, they stand flat on the pavement without a separate base and the sides have 20 parallel grooves. At the top, the columns are composed of three elements - the smooth and flared capital connected to the square Abacus on which rests a horizontal beam (architrave).

Next to the temple there are other ruins where you can see an upside down flared capital and a square abacus, that shows that the two parts were joined, cut from the same rock. The round stones used for the columns and the capital have square holes, for connecting them to other stones of the column with the help of iron.

The stones are from a lime rock quarry situated at Cusa, 13 km away. It is humbling to think of all the work that must have gone into cutting these stones from the rocks, shaping them, making grooves in them and then fixing them one over another.

Going to Acropolis

The Greeks made their cities at the top of the hills and thus these are called Acropolis (high cities). The walk from the eastern hill to the south towards the sea, was very pleasant. I was struck by the colours of the countryside where the dry straw coloured high grass contrasted with the green hills.

As we reached the bottom of the hill, we crossed the Cottone river, that looked like a small canal rather than a proper river. Another bridge near by was over some dry land. Perhaps the main river was dry now and just a canal is enough to carry all the river water? According to the map, nearby was the old harbour of the Greeks.

The climb towards Acropolis brought us to the walls of the old city that had managed to survive the earthquake.

Acropolis

The ruins in the Acropolis are spread over a huge area and include different temples, roads, gates and houses. We were already getting late so it was a hurried visit to some of the buildings in this area.

On one side, we could see the sea and the houses of Salinunte in the distance. Going down on that hill would have brought us to the Salinus river and to the ruins of Malaphorus temple on a hill. But there was not enough time to do that visit.

On our way back, we passed some Punic tombs in raised up stone graves. I was surprised to see plants of Aloe Vera in this area, that I had seen in Cape Town in South Africa. Perhaps the two places share similar environmental conditions!

Then it was time for us to rush back as I was getting late for my meeting. It was a cold and rainy day and there were hardly any other tourists, so the ruins seemed even more desolate and beautiful.

To close this brief walking tour of Greek ruins of Salinunte, here is another image of the beautiful temple of Hera on the Eastern hill.

If you are ever in Sicily, think of visiting Selinunte! It is worth a visit.

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