2026–Turkey and Sicily

In 400 BC there was a city of 200,000 Greeks living in this area. They had enough money (and slaves) to build 13 temples in a row. The largest was HUGE (but gone now.

This gem was totally coverted into a church until King Ferdinand II took away the church part and left the Temple part. But the conversion kept it from being destroyed. It is now the Unesco logo!

This temple was reconstructed by a person who just loved this area.

According to our (very interesting) guide he used some brick, so it is somewhat frowned upon….but the new trend in Archeology is to NOT reconstruct anything….I hope that pendulum swings the other way–unreconstructed temples look like this:

Which doesn’t convey (to me) the grandeur of the civilization that was here.

Loving today. Hugging a 1000 year old tree. love