There is a saying around the Mediterranean, "If you want to see ancient Greece, go to Sicily." Castles, churches, ancient Greek cities, more churches, Arab sounds and flavors, still more churches. The city of Trapani is one of the three corners that make up the triangle of Sicily which gives it its ancient name Trinacria. Siracusa and Messina make up the other two corners of the Sicilian triangle.

It is a huge port city, vying to become the host of the next America's Cup. It needs a lot of cleaning up, the harbor in particular, in order to be a serious contender, in my opinion. Nonetheless, the city was interesting to wander (lots of churches), and especially good as a base from which to explore the mountaintop city of Erice.

A twenty-minute walk and a public bus took us to the base of the cable cars that run regularly 2500 feet up the mountainside to Erice.

Zia girls and Cenou girls (on left)

From high atop the hill, the views are spectacular and a clear indication of why the Greeks originally built here. Strategically overlooking the northern, western and southern coasts, it would be hard to execute a sneak attack with lookouts at Erice.

Of course, when they weren't spending their time defending their position on the hill, they were worshiping. The Greeks built a temple to Venus Erycina, the goddess of fertility, and subsequent rulers built a whole bunch of churches in this little town. This one, built in 1314, was the most spectacular of them. The interior was restored and drastically remodeled in 1865.

An early morning departure from Trapani on Sunday allowed us to stop for a few hours in Mazara del Vallo. The Arab influence is felt quite decidedly in this city only 75 miles from the coast of North Africa. We found Arab food stores open on Sunday, while the rest of the city was pretty much closed up tight.

Despite the Arab influences, we saw an overwhelming number of churches ranging from the 13th to the 18th centuries.

Virtually every corner we turned revealed a new church facade to look at. Ironically enough, they were all closed on Sunday afternoon.

Lunch and our quick walk around town got us back underway to fulfill the last part of The Plan for the day. Twenty miles away lay the ruins of Selinus, perched on a small hill alongside the sea, next to the modern day town of Selinunte. Although the blistering hot weather is hard to deal with when we are touring, it is a joy for anchoring. Again, we dropped the hook within sight of the ruins, a few hundred meters off the beach in a nice sandy bottom, totally exposed to all directions except north.

Zia anchored off of Selinunte

A 7th century BC colony of the even older Greek city of Megara Hyblaea further east on the island, Selinus was an important trading center. Rivalry between other Greek colonies in Sicily led to its decline until it was finally destroyed by the Carthaginian invasion of the island in 409 BC. Sitting on Zia in the shadow of the ruins, it is hard to comprehend such antiquity. Only one of the temples looks anything like it used to, with the rest lying in piles of rubble.

Cenou crew and Zia crew

Nonetheless, we tried to imagine what the huge complex might have looked like back in its heyday 2700 years ago. Our next scheduled stop in Agrigento, the better known Greek ruins on the island, will certainly build upon these speculations.

Unfortunately, the heat wave we have been experiencing has also brought in the deadly jellyfish.

It looked a little bit better by the time we got back to the boat at noon, and we were able to jump in and climb out to cool off a little before taking off for San Leone, the port closest to Agrigento. The Plan calls for a night at anchor here, a day of exploring the ancient city tomorrow and an overnight sail around the southeast corner of the island. Depending on what Mother Nature has in store for us, we will visit Siracusa and Taormina and perhaps one or two other small towns on the east coast of Sicily before heading for Croatia.