Erice and Segesta

Erice: panoramic tour and visit to the Castle of Venus Balio.Visita Gardens adjacent to the Church of Madre.Segesta: Visit the Doric Temple and greek theater. (4 hours)

There are places in Sicily where the myth is interwoven and where the archeology testifies of ancient peoples and civilizations life. On the summit of Mount San Giuliano, in a splendid panoramic position on Trapani, in silence through the clouds, laying the city of Erice.
Erice was populated by the Elimi who erected the temple dedicated to the worship of the goddess of fertility and love. Successive rulers entitled the temple for their gods, so the Phoenicians, they adored Tanit-Astarte, the Greek Aphrodite, the Romans Venus Ericina.
On the ruins of the temple still it stands today the Castle of Venus, fortified during the Norman domination, adjacent to the gardens of Balio dominated by medieval towers.
The city is surrounded by huge walls of Elimo (VII sec.a.C. facility) to which corners stand: the Norman Castle; the Dome or Matrix (1314), which retains its original fourteenth-century Gothic style, with the bell tower and its delicate mullioned windows and the Spanish Quarter. The old town has a typical medieval urban layout with squares, narrow and winding streets which overlook beautiful flowered courtyards.
Erice hosts more than sixty churches, including those of San Martino, San Cataldo, San Giuliano, San Giovanni Battista. Every summer, echoing the medieval music recovered memory by internationally renowned artists presented during the Week of Medieval and Renaissance Music.
To visit the Museum Cordici, in whose atrium is the Annunciation by Antonello Gagini, located in Piazza Umberto I.
Erice, seat of the Centre for Scientific Culture "Ettore Majorana", preserves the charm of medieval city animated by typical craft shops: finely decorated pottery, colorful hand-woven carpets, traditional sweets made with almonds and candied fruit .

Taken from the APT website

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Located in beautiful position, among the rolling hills and ocher red brown colors forming a pleasing contrast with the infinite shades of green, the archaeological park is dominated by the elegant Doric temple.
The ancient Segesta, probably founded by the Elimi, such as Erice, soon becomes one of the main Mediterranean cities of the Hellenistic influence and, in the fifth century. It is the greatest rival of Selinunte. To guard against the latter, appeals, in 415 BC the Athenians, but these are often defeated by Syracuse, an ally of Selinunte. In 409 BC urges then the help of the Carthaginians who arrived in Sicily, Selinunte and destroy Himera. Segesta is in turn destroyed by Agathocles of Syracuse in 307 B.C., and is reborn with the Romans. Do not you rather know the fate of the city in the following period, although it is supposed his education by the Vandals, the site continued to be inhabited in the Middle Ages as evidenced by the remains of the Norman castle and a small basilica triabsidata (later abandoned and rebuilt as hermitage in the XV sec.), located where was the northern part of the ancient Acropolis.
The latter stood in two zones divided by a saddle. The Southeast area was residential, while the north was home to public buildings, including the theater.
The Temple - The Temple of Segesta, one of the most perfect monuments come to us from antiquity, stands in majestic solitude on a hill surrounded by a deep valley framed by Monte Bernardo and Monte Barbaro where the theater is located. Built in 430 BC, it is an elegant Doric building from the proportions of a rare harmony. The peristyle has preserved almost completely intact the 36 columns, in magnificent limestone of a golden tint and free of grooves. This fact and the lack of an internal cell did suggest that the construction has been abandoned before the end. In this theory, however, it opposes the opinion of some scholars for whom the absence of any trace of the inner cell (point where normally the building was started), would testify that the building is actually a peristyle pseudotemplare. Added to this is the mystery of his destination, since it was not found any evidence that could indicate which deity was dedicated.
The road leading up to the theater (2 km Ca. viable even with a comfortable
shuttle) offers a magnificent view of the temple. Before the theater, on the right
can see the ruins of the Hermitage of San Leone with a single apse, it built on
a previous triabsidato building and, behind it, the ruins of the Norman castle.
Theatre - Built in the third century. B.C. in the Hellenistic period, but under Roman rule, consists of a perfect and vast hemicycle of 63 m in diameter placed on a rocky slope, the steps are oriented towards the hills behind which, on the right, you can see the Gulf of Castellammare.
Every two years, in the summer, the theater is revived by throngs of spectators eager to savor, in a timeless setting, the great tragedies and comedies that bound the Ancients.

Taken from Siciliano site

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