Now, I don’t have much commentary on these specific scenes as I just took these pictures at random places in the countryside and I don’t know where I was when I took them. I will share some Sicilian driving memories though.

One night I was driving along at a decent clip on the highway and came around a turn when I suddenly perceived a large object swiftly emerging out of the gloom in front of me. I locked up the brakes, sending clouds of smoke billowing out, and came screeching to within perhaps a foot or two of a solid cement barrier that had been placed across the road as part of a construction project. No warning signs, no lights, no flags, nothing… Just driving along an open highway in total darkness and suddenly we have a massive cement barrier in front of us. And on a turn even! Our Italian correspondent stated that this was pretty bad even by Italian standards.

On another occasion, I was headed to Palermo at a comfortable speed of 150 km/h (93.2 mph) or so when a guy (I’m assuming it was a guy) on a sport bike just exploded past me. Now, I have obviously been passed before, but I have never been passed like this guy passed me. He was easily going at least 100 km/h (60 mph) faster than I was and I wasn’t exactly driving like a PTA mother. And I’m not exaggerating either because I became familiar with the capabilities and dynamics of motorcycles through my own fairly recent experiences.

Anyway, he was going so fast that I can’t even tell you anything about his motorcycle except that it was red and it was a sport bike. You may be thinking, “Meh, that’s fast, but not that fast.” However, this was not a straight stretch of broad freeway resembling an airport runway. No, this was a narrow highway twisting through the hills ringing the island. This rider was going for it to a degree that I have rarely seen paralleled and it was truly awesome to witness.

Another time we were cruising along a highway when we noticed a car parked in the fast lane. That’s right, it was parked in the fast lane. The reason? The occupants of the car were changing their baby’s diaper in the middle of the road. No emergency. They just thought that the road provided a good flat surface to work on. How Italian is that attitude? You’ve got to laugh at that…

The scenes above are lovely, but unfortunately Sicily is still part of Italy and so this is a sad reality as well:

Taormina is a small town on the east coast of the island of Sicily, found north of the city of Catania and close to Mount Etna…

Given the region of the world in which it is found, Taormina, of course, has an extensive history which stretches back to pre-Greek times. Taormina has been inhabited or conquered at various times by the Siculi, the Greeks, the Romans, rebellious Roman slaves during the First Servile War, the Byzantines, the Arabs, the Normans (and their heirs in the form of the Hohenstaufen), the Spanish and eventually the Bourbon dynasty of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies until Italian unification at the hands of Giuseppe Garibaldi in 1860.

Prominent visitors to Taormina have included Oscar Wilde, Nicholas I of Russia, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Nietzsche and Richard Wagner among others.

This is the Taormina of today:

That island is the appropriately named Isola Bella:

The beach in Taormina:

His display of street art stretched for almost a block.

Located on the southeastern corner of Sicily, the 2,700-year-old city was once one of the major powers of the Mediterranean world.

Siracusa was founded in 734 or 733 BC by Greek settlers from Corinth and Tenea, who called it “Sirako”, referring to a nearby salt marsh.

The city-state prospered and became quite powerful, even making expeditions up to Elba and Corsica on the Tyrrhenian Sea. However, Siracusa’s expanded power inevitably brought it into conflict with its neighbors.

Sometimes allied with Agrigento and another time with the Spartans, Siracusa battled the Carthagians, the Etruscans, the Siculi and even Athens when the Athenians sought more resources with which to pursue the Peloponnesian War. However, the most persistent foe of Siracusa during this period of ancient history was Carthage.

Siracusa had been alternating between tyrants and democracy, but lost its independence when the city-state fell to the Romans in 212 BC. During the Roman assault, Siracusa’s most famous son – the mathematician, astronomer, physicist, engineer and inventor Archimedes – was killed by a Roman soldier.

The Romans held Siracusa until the Vandals seized it. Then, the Byzantines took Siracusa from the Vandals in 535 AD.

The Muslim conquest of Sicily swept through Siracusa in the form of the Aghlabids who laid siege to the city and captured it in 878.

In 1085 the Normans occupied Siracusa. The Normans were followed in their conquest by King of Germany and Sicily and Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI of Swabia (Germany) in 1194 before the Genoese briefly ruled Siracusa from 1205 to 1220. Genoese rule was ended when King of Sicily, Italy, Burgundy and Jerusalem and Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II took the city-state back for the Germans.

After this, Palermo gradually eclipsed Siracusa in importance, as the capital of the Kingdom of Sicily. Eventually the kingdom was united with the Kingdom of Naples to form the Two Sicilies until the Italian unification, led by Giuseppe Garibaldi, in 1860.

And on and on the warfare and fighting goes, even as recently as World War II when Siracusa was badly damaged by heavy Allied and German bombing campaigns in 1943… General Montgomery’s Eighth Army captured Siracusa almost unopposed on the first day of the allied invasion of Sicily, Operation Husky. The port at Siracusa was then used as a base for the Royal Navy. To the west of the city is a Commonwealth War Graves cemetery where about 1,000 men are buried.

The point of the above was to illustrate that at one time or another, essentially every major civilization (and plenty of minor civilizations) has occupied Siracusa at some point…

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A view of Siracusa across its port as it looks today:

Street scenes in Siracusa:

Along the waterfront of Siracusa:

These guys are sorting mussels that they picked up by wading through the tide pools around Siracusa:

Naturally, Siracusa has a number of archaeologically significant sites surrounding it and these, along with the city of Siracusa itself, are listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

This contented cat at the entrance to the archaeological zone set our visit off properly:

Below is the immense Altar of Hieron II, a ruler of Siracusa who came to power in 275 BC… The altar was used for mass sacrifices during festivals:

Part of the Necropolis of Pantalica… Approximately 5,000 tombs are visible across the cliffs and caverns of this area, most of them hewn out of the rock face. Interspersed with the tombs are the remains of dwellings dating back to the Neolithic period right the way through to the remains of dwellings abandoned after World War II:

This Greek theater is one of the largest ever built by the ancient Greeks. It is still used today for special events:

Near the theater are abandoned stone quarries which were also used as prisons in ancient times. The most famous feature in these quarries is a cave known as the Ear of Dionysius…

This name was given to the cave by the painter Caravaggio and refers to a tyrant, Dionysius I, who seized power in Siracusa in 405 BC.

According to legend (perhaps created by Caravaggio), Dionysius carved the cave in its shape in order to amplify the screams of prisoners being tortured within.

Regardless of its purpose, the acoustics are quite remarkable as a hushed conversation held near the back of the cave can be heard quite distinctly at the entrance to the cave:

Security forces holding talks with Romanians following the execution of Ceausescu to see where to go next:

Discussing the future:

Photos by Patrick Durand and Patrick Robert.

For more on Romania’s 1989 Revolution, I have an extensive post here.

The use of the word “Sour” in the title is not a commentary on the taste of Tyre, but rather is an alternative name for Tyre…

Tyre’s origins are thought to date to around the 3rd millennium BC, when the original founders are believed to have arrived from Sidon to establish a new port city.

Alexander the Great arrived in 332 BC as he marched along the Phoenecian coast exacting tribute from all its city-states. Tyre, at that time still an island and respecting a time-honored tradition, resisted and prepared for a long siege. The city was considered impregnable, but Alexander began building a sea bridge to reach the city. Meanwhile, on the mainland, Alexander’s engineers were constructing 20-story siege towers, the tallest ever used in the history of war. After several months these great war machines lumbered across the land bridge and the battle for Tyre began in earnest.

Running low on supplies and morale, Tyre finally fell after seven months and Alexander, annoyed by the stubborn resistance of the Tyrians, allowed his troops to sack the city. The city’s 30,000 residents were massacred or sold into slavery.

Alexander’s legacy lives on in Tyre, as the land bridge he created became the permanent link between the old city and the mainland, and Tyre became a peninsula.

In 64 BC, Tyre became a Roman province.

The Arabs took the city in AD 635 and the Umayyad caliph, Mu’awiyah, transformed the city into a naval base and it was from there that that the first Arab fleet set sail to conquer Cyprus.

In 1124, after a siege of five and a half months, Crusaders occupied the city. Tyre remained in Christian hands for 167 years, until the Mamluks retook the city in 1291.

Once the State of Israel was established in 1948, Tyre’s position close to the sealed border marginalized the city, which had already started to be sidelined by Beirut and Sidon.

And along with the rest of the South, Tyre suffered greatly during the drawn-out Lebanese civil war.

The battering the city took during the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel didn’t help matters either. During the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, several rocket-launching sites used by Hezbollah to attack Israel were located in rural areas around the city. At least one village near the city was bombed by Israel, as well as several sites within the city, causing civilian deaths. Israeli naval commandos also raided Hezbollah targets within the city.

And indeed, predominantly Shiite like much of the South, one will notice many many pro-Hezbollah posters on the drive into the city.

UNIFIL has about 12,000 troops and naval personnel in Lebanon after its expansion under UN Security Council resolution 1701 that halted the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war in southern Lebanon:

UN forces often find themselves the target of attacks around Tyre… Just last month, a roadside bomb struck a group of French troops. And in November two bombs ripped through downtown Tyre. The first bomb destroyed a pub at the Queen Elissa Hotel, popular with UN staffers, and the second went off five minutes later at a wholesale liquor store near Tyre’s port, also causing damage but no casualties.

The deadliest attack was in June 2007, when a bomb hit an armored personnel carrier near the Israeli border and killed six Spanish peacekeepers.

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The old part of Tyre lies on the peninsula jutting out into the sea, covering a relatively small area. The modern town is on the left side as one arrives from Beirut. The coastal route goes all the way to Tyre’s picturesque old port, around which are a few cafes and restaurants. Behind the port is the Christian quarter, with its tiny alleys and old houses around shaded courtyards.

The port in Tyre:

A fisherman working on his nets:

One of the entrances to the Christian quarter:

The modern waterfront looks as if it could be in Beirut or Miami:

Once one starts walking away from the waterfront in Tyre, the modern city starts to look a little more interesting though:

And then one suddenly stumbles across the Roman ruins behind these high-rise apartments and they are extremely interesting:

Below is the Al-Bass Archaeological Site…

That’s the Al Bass Palestinian refugee camp on the far left. And just to the left of the Roman road is a vast funerary complex containing dozens of highly decorated marble and stone sarcophagi. To the right is a massive Roman hippodrome:

This huge, triple-bay monumental archway stands at the end of the Roman road. Originally the gateway to the Roman town, it dates to the 2nd century AD:

Next to the arch is the entrance to the largest and best-preserved Roman hippodrome in the world. Used for dangerous (and extremely popular) chariot races, the hippodrome is 480 meters long and once seated 20,000 people.

A view of the Roman hippodrome taken from the stands at one end:

The tight, high-speed turns at the end of the long, narrow course, were the most desirable spots to sit in as the sharp turns often produced dramatic collisions and falls:

A view of the seats:

A passageway running under the spectator seating – much like modern stadiums… Very little remains now, but the spectator seating used to wrap all of the way around the hippodrome:

As an interesting “oh by the way” connected to the Romans, the most famous woman of ancient Tyrian legend was Princess Elissa, also known as Dido.  Embroiled in a plot to take power, when it became clear that she’d failed, Dido seized a fleet of ships and sailed for North Africa.  She founded a new port on the ruins of Kambeh, which became known in time as Carthage, near modern-day Tunis.  This became the seat of the Carthaginian empire. And we all know what headaches Carthage caused for the Romans…

Agrigento is located on the southern coast of Sicily and is renowned as the site of the ancient Greek city of Akragas. So, I’ll focus on that first…

In its day, Akragas was one of the richest and most famous of the Greek colonies.

Ancient Akragas covered a huge area — much of which is still unexcavated today — but it is probably best represented by the Valley of the Temples, which comprised an area on the southern edge of the city where seven massive Greek temples were constructed during the 6th and 5th centuries BC. Now excavated and partially restored, they constitute some of the largest and best-preserved ancient Greek ruins in the world.

It’s been said that if you wish to see Greek ruins, go to Sicily rather than Greece. And it’s true. These are just one example of the many ancient Greek ruins that can be found in Sicily.

The ruins of Akragas are listed as a World Heritage Site:

The Temple of Juno:

The Temple of Juno from a distance:

It was not until after I took this picture of the Temple of Concordia, that I noticed the girl in the yellow dress putting her charms fully on display (click on her if you are unsure what I mean). I assume she must be a big fan of The Velvet Rocket:

This was my intended picture of the Temple of Concordia:

The area around the Temple of Concordia was later re-used by early Christians as a catacomb, with tombs hewn out of the rocky cliffs and outcrops. That is what you are seeing here:

The other temples are much more fragmentary, having been toppled by earthquakes long ago and quarried for their stones:

As I mentioned above, Agrigento is on the southern coast of Sicily, making it the closest part of Italy to Africa. And in fact, the city was invaded on multiple occasions by the Carthaginians (now Tunisia).

But, about that being closest to Africa bit… My time in Agrigento was the hottest I have ever been. And I’ve gone hiking in Death Valley in August. The blast furnace heat of Agrigento certainly makes you realize how close you are to Africa.

In Italy, it is common for married couples to visit ancient ruins on the day of their wedding to be photographed with the attractive setting in the background. Given the heat I described above, I don’t know how these guys didn’t have sweat pouring off of them. Either way, they were being photographed as we were leaving, so I decided to take a picture as well. That’s why the guy is looking at me like, “Who the hell are you? And why are you taking my picture?”

To my surprise, Agrigento is officially one of the poorest towns in Italy on a per capita income basis. I use the word “surprise” because this was probably the most modest home we saw in Agrigento and it was right next to the ruins. So, in other words, it was in a prime spot:

However, Agrigento also has a long-standing history of organized crime, particularly involving the smuggling of narcotics. I believe that may be the explanation for homes such as the one pictured below and why, as is true for most of Italy, people seem to have more money than official statistics would suggest:

The Actors:

Somali pirates:

Ethiopia’s Ogaden rebels:

Fighters working for various Somali warlords:

The African Union:

The Kenyan military:

TFG Militia:

The Ethiopian military:

Al Shabab Islamic militants:

Deus Ex Machina:

One Of The Theaters:

Mogadishu, Somalia:

It’s an interesting part of the world… And a dangerous part of the world no matter who you are, as the late terrorist leader Fazul Abdullah Mohammed demonstrated:

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As I’ve said before, we keep a huge file of photographs related to various research projects. The origins of many of the photos we know well. But many sources provided others over a period of years, and many of the sources did not know exactly who made which frame. Some were made by the government, others by families, others by journalists — foreign and domestic. If the photographers’ names are made known to us, we will update and credit them in this post.