Siracusa and Ortigia (Italy Post #4)

With our packs still strapped to our backs we arrived off the train early on October 11th and started wandering around Siracusa, Italy. Since we weren't even spending a whole 24 hours in the city, we decided to stay on the historic island of Ortigia which features many intricate 17th century buildings in Baroque style architecture. Basically, all the buildings looked really cool and old.

After munching on our morning cornetti, we sat on a bench across from the ruins of the temple of Apollo and watched the adjacent market begin to set up for the day. We weren't allowed to drop our luggage off at our AirBnB quite yet, so we rested for a bit before wandering around to see a few of the sights before a nearby cruise ship released its population upon the town. Even at 8:30 in the morning we had already spotted a few tour boats packed with people.

The island of Ortigia is only 800m long, so we were able to find a few interesting spots before the crowds caught up.

The first thing you saw once you walked across the bridge from the mainland of Syracuse was the Apollo ruins. There were large intact pillars still visible and a small info sign stated than many religions had taken over the area over the past 2000 years and used them for forums and churches. Since then, the pillars and surrounding area had been restored to their previous Greek origin.

Next, we walked past Fontana di Diana. A small fountain with insane detail of Diana, the Roman goddess of hunting and nature, and the surrounding horses and mermen. Then, Fonte Aretusa, an ancient spring with papyrus plants and lots of ducks and fish was our next stop. The legend posted near the fountain told the tale of how Diana saved the nymph Aretusa from being kidnapped and brought her back to her homeland in the form of a natural freshwater spring.

A small church stood out to us on our wanderings, and acted as a place to sit down without our bags on for a minute. It has a big long name: Chiesa di Santa Maria Della Concezione (The Church of Saint Mary). White, high arching ceilings with gold trim and (fake) marble pillars. For me, the intricate floor stood out too, having been hand painted with designs and flowers in yellow, blue and green. The ceiling also had paintings of Jesus and a prophet.

We finally laid our eyes on the Cathedral of Syracuse. A massive structure with seemingly out of place Greek style pillars integrated into the construction along the one side, from an ancient temple of Athena. It was intriguing to say the least. Just another example of overlapping history. Carson and I soon met our host and dropped off our bags before rushing back to see inside.

The Cathedral has a ceiling of wooden beams, lacking the typical arches with paintings or gold accents. It was simple, with Latin enscriptions along the top of the pillars and stained glass windows.

The main stretch of the church branched off to reveal separate altars and chapels on the sides. They possessed more intricate ceilings with the typical gold accents and carved stone pillars.

Another interesting sight in the city was the market. It took up a full street in length and was packed full of anything you could ever dream of. Leather hand bags, backpacks, and belts took up one section, with jewelery, dresses and skirts, and small trinkets filling up the next. You couldn't possibly look at everything within an afternoon. As we rounded the corner, there was food everywhere. Mounds of fresh caught fish on ice, fresh fruit and vegetables, olives and olive oil, along with sweet treats and nuts as well. Shop owners would call out what they were selling and yell, "Prego, prego, prego!", essentially inviting people to come see what they had to offer. It was a bit overwhelming, but we still stopped to buy a few things. We picked up some candy and then spoke with a man selling fruit on a large table who reached underneath the display to give us very ripe plums and peaches to snack on.

Finally, we entered a Castle successfully! It was powerful and very large, with an advantageous position right at the tip of the island. It previously would have also held a draw bridge, separating the building from the main city of Ortigia. The Castello Maniace would have been able to protect the northern island and southern harbor from attack and had enough gun ports to do so.

Overall, the castle was massive. It was easy to imagine huge cannons, set in the grooves on the stone floors, wreaking havoc on any enemy ships. There was a lower level of cannons and an upper one, with smaller rifle bays and arrow slits too. Over and over, Carson and I would look at each other and say "who would want to attack this place".

A stunning piece of work was the main hall. Tall arching ceilings and large pillars held the roof above. It looked like there used to be a second floor that had since been removed or burned down, as well as two massive hearths to heat the building. I wish we knew how it used to look, it would have been such an interesting building to wander through.

We also fulfilled one of Carsons bucketlist items on this day: cliff jumping into the Mediterranean. One of the public "beaches" in Ortigia is literally a wooden platform suspended above the crystal clear ocean on metal infrastructure and rocks below the streets of the island. Carson and I made our way to one of the larger boulders and contemplated jumping in. We had seen two young kids succeed earlier in the day, so we figured we could risk it. It was only about 10-15ft high, but still gave a rush of adrenaline.

We remembered to bring our goggles too, so we got to swim around the large rocks and look at some huge fish and lots of crabs. Again, no pictures. I'm beginning to regret not having a waterproof camera around...

Our evening in Ortigia finished with a lovely dinner at a little Sicilian restaurant off the main road, Ristorante Retroscena. I truly believe this was the best meal yet! We forget what it was all called...and ate it all too quickly to catch a photo, but there was a lovely avocado, pear and arugula salad and a trofie pasta with a creamy, rich tomato sauce. It was perfectly made and simply heaven. We ordered a lava cake and pistachio ice cream for dessert as well. I'll be waiting to top this meal.

Thanks again for joining me as I write out this journey! You can subscribe to get updates every time I post, and as usual, questions will always be welcome. Ciao!