ELVIRA

If you glance up from the Valley of the Temples toward the center of Agrigento, the view is not especially inviting. But if you knew what is concealed behind the box-shaped new buildings, you could imagine these apartment blocks as powerful guardians, protecting the magnificent heart of the old town by keeping it secret so it doesn’t suffer a fresh assault.

This has been a recurring theme in the history of Agrigento, which was constantly being renamed depending on who ruled it at the time. The Greeks gave the town the name Akragas, the Romans called it Agrigentum, the Arabs coined the name Kerkent, and the Normans referred to the place as Girgenti. From 1927 onward, during the fascist regime, the Italian name Agrigento was adopted and continues to be used today.

Visitors who aren’t put off by the new buildings and who approach the high ground on which the town is situated find a stunning and vibrant historical center. There are few hotels (virtually none), but the old town is brimming with smaller bed-and-breakfast options.

Visitors to Agrigento are spoiled for choice: an amazing number of guest houses are crammed into this little town. In every pretty, winding alleyway and passage, you will find at least one equally attractive place to stay. And sometimes you have good luck and make exactly the right choice—in which case, you may end up at Elvira’s place: Camere a Sud.

Elvira opened her bed-and-breakfast in 2004, and it was quite a rarity at the time. She had studied law and communications and, after college, lived and worked for 2 years in Rome. But, along with her husband, she decided to return home. “We Sicilians, if we all leave the island, nothing will grow here anymore. So I thought—even if it’s just a small contribution—I could do my bit to help. I wanted to come back.”

Before she opened Camere a Sud, there were absolutely no guest houses in Agrigento. Now the place is full of them, and that’s fantastic, because this is how a town can gain new life. But when Elvira started her business, it was unusual for a college graduate to take tourists into their own home. It was even regarded as slightly shocking, as the bed-and-breakfast is not an Italian concept. It was pretty much unknown, and people did not know what to make of it.

Over time, Elvira began to write, inspired by all the exceptional guests she had gotten to know as a host. Her attitude to life also changed. Instead of believing that the universe revolved around herself, she began to realize that it revolves around other people. “We are all different, and these differences result in something that really fascinates me,” she explains.

“So that’s why I’m so interested in people and what it means to be human. My writing is almost like a kind of anthropological study, just for me. I started to document genuine stories, without using real names, about things that actually happened here in my bed-and-breakfast between check-in and check-out.” Initially, she published these stories on Facebook and, when she stopped posting them online, there was an immediate flood of complaints from her readers, who were already hooked on reading the tales.

There’s always a positive twist to her accounts. No matter how tragic a situation might be, she will find something good. Some stories are ironic; others move you to tears.

Elvira told me, “I have to write down everything I know about an amazing person or situation straight away; otherwise, the moment is lost and I forget the scintillating details. The whole world happens here.” And I am suddenly reminded that one of the most important 20th-century playwrights, Luigi Pirandello, who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1934, was born in Agrigento.

Before I leave, Elvira hands me another jar of the particularly fine pistachio cream that is always on offer at the breakfast buffet, and also a jar of her mother’s tomato sauce—a typically generous gesture from this fabulous Agrigento host.