Villa Romana del Casale

We selected Agrigento as one of three bases for our stay in Sicily in part because of its proximity to Villa Romana del Casale, a 4th Century urban villa which contains the richest collection of Roman mosaics in the world.

'Proximity' might have been the appropriate description if we hadn't got ourselves lost several times driving to the site in our rental car. This led to a comic scene on our arrival at the UNESCO World Heritage site. We were bursting to find the facilities.

Signs in the car park pointed in the general direction of the toilets but getting to them turned into an ordeal of sorts. It turned into a very long walk through car parking followed by market stalls topped off by numerous winding paths up a hill - which by then seemed to us like a mountain. Walking, turned into shuffle and shuffle turned into trot and trot turned into a race. At the same time the hilarity of the situation got to us and we must have appeared like crazy people as we raced up the winding pathways laughing so hard and endlessly that I could barely breathe let alone speak coherently.

When eventually we arrived at the toilets to be confronted by the ubiquitous toilet attendant collector of monies we were so desperate that we rudely stormed past him and his protestations for blessed relief.

The magnificent mosaics were almost an anti-climax after that.