Valley of the Temples

The Valle dei Templi in Agrigento, Sicily, is a 1,300-hectare archaeological park -- Europe's largest -- preserving the ruins of ancient Akragas, a Greek colony founded in 580 BC. The site features seven Doric temples from the 5th century BC, including the remarkably preserved Temple of Concordia, which survived by conversion into a church in the 6th century AD. The Temple of Olympian Zeus, built after 480 BC, featured colossal 7.5-metre telamones. Devastated by Carthaginian attack in 406 BC, the site was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997 as one of the finest examples of ancient Greek architecture outside Greece.