Wobbling Winos: Day 6. Sciacca to San Leone.

Day 6. Sciacca to San Leone. 78km.

We creaked out of bed and had a quick walk through the old town before breakfast. The narrow streets are lined with beautiful buildings sadly in a sorry state. The town is built on a steep hill overlooking the port. A typical Sicilian breakfast of fruit, rolls and all kinds a sweet doughnut-like buns and croissants filled with ricotta or pistachio cream. Unfortunately not an egg to seen (and we have yet to find chicken on a menu).

Garmi redeemed herself after yesterday's route to Sciacca by getting us onto the right route out of this confusing town. The only to Ribera was on a large busy road, but at least there was an adequate shoulder and great views of the surrounding hills and the coastline below. A few tunnels had us scratching around in our bags for lights.

We took a detour to see the 4-6th century BC Greek ruins at Eraclea Minoa. The major part of the ruins is an amphitheater, now with a structure covering it for protection. The site is on a headland high above the coast so I hope the Greek gods appreciate our effort riding up to visit.

We reached Montallegro, a small tatty town in the hills, in time to catch the supermarket open before the three hour siesta to buy water and a standard cheese-tomato-cucumber-bread lunch. Garmi then found us a route on the old unused road parallel to the busy road so we had a good cycle, albeit hilly, towards Agrigento. We reached the coast near the port and the famous Scala del Turchi (Turkish Steps), the naturally terraced white cliffs often seen in tourist brochures of Sicily. They were supposedly named for the site of a lookout for approaching enemy Turkish ships.

We then had a "red-zone" climb up to the Valle dei Templi. This is a huge archeological site along a 3km ridge featuring a string of Greek temples and surrounding water channels walls, gates and burial grounds. It was founded in 581BC, and previously called Akragas. It is a magnificent site, with huge olive trees up to 600 years old, and heaps of massive rocks and parts of columns. At the top is the Temple of Concordia, which was the best preserved as it was used as a Christian church until the 1700s, and then about 500m further up are the remains of the Temple of Juno. We had an interesting time exploring there, hoping our bicycles and bags would still be in the parking lot on our return.

We then had an easy run into San Leone on the coast. Our B&B for the night, Le Notti di Morfeo, was in an apartment one block back from the sea. We were met by our very friendly and helpful hosts who went out of there way to welcome us after a long day in the saddle. They even did our washing for us - a great relief, especially as it was my turn.

We found a pleasant local trattoria for supper; Jen enjoyed busiata pasta with prawns, and I hacked my way through a steak that had swum from Argentina aided by a good red blend from Planeta.