Via Garibaldi looks like an ordinary street, but it's the old main road of the Rabato, Agrigento's Arab-founded quarter, once called the "shari," the central artery around which the district's homes, shops, and public buildings were arranged after the Arab conquest of 828 AD.
South of the street were rock-cut dwellings carved directly into the hillside; north of it, more conventional masonry housing, a division that still faintly shapes the area today. Some of these cave dwellings were inhabited as late as the 1950s.
At the top of the street, Piazza Giuseppe Sinatra opens onto what locals call a natural balcony: a sweeping view east to west along the Agrigento coastline, from Punta Bianca to Porto Empedocle, with the Valley of the Temples visible in between.