The Daily Diary of a Wandering Restaurateur
Strollin' Around Siracusa

We just had to go somewhere and do something today, so we headed south about an hour to Siracusa (Syracuse), originally a Greek settlement 3000 years ago. In its heyday Siracusa was the largest city in the ancient world, bigger even than Athens and Corinth. It was founded by Corinthian colonists who landed on the island of Ortygia in 734 BC and set up shop. Then followed the Romans (of course), the Saracens, plague and earthquake. Siracusa never recovered.

At the suggestion of Marina and Andrea, we spent all our time in old town Siracusa, still called Ortygia. The oldest parts of Syracuse are about 2km away on the mainland side of the bridges that join Ortygia island to the rest of Sicily.


Was this car show weekend in Sicily? First the display in Catania and today we found close to fifty spotless classics parked all along the main drag and around the Piazza Archimede. Old, but nowhere near the age of the Temple of Apollo, built by the Greeks around the 6th century BC.


The showpiece square in Ortygia is the Piazza del Duomo, a masterpiece of baroque town planning. It is a long, rectangular piazza on the site of what was once Siracusa's fortified citadel, lined with flashy pallazzi. The centerpiece is the Duomo (cathedral) built on the ruins of the original Greek temple of Athena. You can still see some of the thick Greek columns incorporated into the side wall of the church. The Gran Caffe del Duomo across from the church was the perfect spot to sit in the sun, sip a cappuccino and people-watch.


Ortygia is a tangled mass of alleyways, small piazzas and stately palazzi (palaces/grand houses). The skinny lanes are lined with trattorias, cafes, boutiques and little shops selling useless crap for tourists. Still, it is a place more to be absorbed than simply seen and photographed. You don't see the old town as much as you feel the old town. It just sort of wraps around you if you let it. I just love this sort of immersion in something so very old and real.

We made a valiant attempt to find a few more spots of interest a little farther south in Noto, but ended up driving aimlessly through narrow streets looking for the main piazza. We never found it and, tired of driving, headed for the autostrada and the run back to Catania for a bad lunch at a caffeteria bar down the street. I always said I didn't think there was any bad food in Italy. I was wrong ... but tomorrow we will do much better!


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