Planning a trip to Agrigento
The Settimana Pirandelliana is a festival of plays, operas, and ballets staged in Piazza Kaos during 1 week in July or August.
Getting Around
Agrigento is served by a network of orange TUA buses. A ticket selling for 1€ is valid for 1 1/2 hours. Bus no. 2 or 2/ runs to the beach at San Leone. Bus nos. 1 and 2 make frequent runs to the Valley of the Temples, and bus no. 11 goes to Casa di Pirandello. For a taxi service in Agrigento, call tel. 0922-21899 or 0922-26670.
Fast Facts
Hospital -- Ospedale Civile, Via Rupe Atenea 1 (tel. 0922-492111).
Pharmacy -- Farmacia Patti, Via Atenea 129 (tel. 0922-20591), open daily 9am to 1:30pm and 5 to 7:30pm.
Internet -- A.M. Servizi Telematici, Cortile Contarini 7 (tel. 0922-402345), open Monday to Saturday 9am to 1pm and 3:30 to 9pm. It charges 3€ per hour.
Post Office -- Piazza Vittorio Emanuele (tel. 0922-551605), is open Monday to Saturday 8am to 6:30pm. Currency can be exchanged here.
Getting There
Agrigento is about 2.5 hours by car from either Palermo or Siracusa. From Palermo, cut southeast on the SS121, which becomes SS189 before it finally reaches Agrigento. From Siracusa, take the A18 autostrada north to Catania and the A19 west toward Enna; just past Enna, exit the A19 and follow signs south through Caltanissetta and down to Agrigento. (The “coastal route” from Siracusa—taking the SS115 all the way—may look more direct on the map but is much more time-consuming, up to 5 hours on an often very curvy two-lane road.) Parking is below the temples, near the entrances to the western section (Zeus) and eastern section (Collina dei Templi). A well-marked path leads along the ridge past the temples. A shuttle bus (3€ each way) connects the parking areas with the top of the site, though the walk is not terribly strenuous.Bus connections between Palermo and Agrigento are fairly convenient: Cuffaro (www.cuffaro.info; tel. 0922/403-150) runs nine buses per day and drops you right in front of the entrance to the archaeological site; the 2-hour trip costs 9€ one-way, 14€ round-trip. There’s also bus service from Siracusa, but it's at least 4 hours each way.
A train from Palermo takes 2 hours; there are 12 trains daily. From Siracusa, trains take 6 hours, with a change in Catania. For information, visit www.trenitalia.it; tel. 89/2021. Agrigento’s rail station, Stazione Centrale, is at Piazza Marconi; from there, take a cab or local bus (lines 1, 2, or 3) to the temples, 10 minutes away.
