Bella Siracusa

Did we forget to post about Syracuse?!!!

We are about to disembark in Genoa and left Siracusa four days ago but it was such a fabulous little city. The first glance is its a little run down, and that's probably because many Sicilians have not much money, live in cramped apartments and don't have a lot of money to refurbish the lovely buildings they have inherited from the past, with wrought iron railings, crumbling stone lintels and rotting giant doors. It's not like you can go to Home Depot for these kinds of repairs! So only rich people or entrepreneurs can make an old palace look new.

Our hotel for our two stays in sicily was the Posta, called that because it is on post office square, the very top of the island of Ortygia which is the heart of Siracusa for a tourist. Within its few avenues wide enough for one large car plus sidewalk space, its many tiny alleys shadowed by overhanging balconies, and its seaside promenades where the stone walls drop ten feet or more to the old rock ruins below, it's enchanting. In the heart is the duomo, a huge church built entirely within the former Sanctuary of Athena, its walls containing the huge columns carved by the Greeks rising 25 feet up but within it, a medieval then baroque roofed cathedral. In front of the Duomo which is made of veryblight brown sandstone or is it aged colcanic tufa, is a classic huge Italian piazza, acres of smooth pavement, open spaces where kids play what I know as "indoor soccer" without goals, restauranteurs place tables and awnings, and people love to stroll about.

The best part of a Sicilian evening, in a town not overrun by sun-seeking tourists like of example Cefalu, is the passagiata: an aimless but purposeful flow of happy people from early twilight until full dark, checking each other out, deciding where to stop for a drink, a beer or a coffee or a meal, and chatting endlessly. The women dress casually but nicely, maybe with gold shiny high top high heeled "sports shoes" and very skinny legged jeans.

Siracusa is full of these people in the evening. The first night we arrived, late, by train, we went out to search for food. From our hotel we went past a floodlit Greek ruin and into the diagonal street that plunges into the heart of Ortygia which is lined with fashionable stores with nattily dressed mannikins in their windows. It was eleven, we were looking for eats and didnt know where to go, later we realized there are thousands of great places in Ortygia. But we went to a small trattoria in Piazza Posta, that was finishing serving a large happy family of twelve. We ordered antipasti, then spaghetti cooked with the black ink of cuttlefish. Delicious!!!

The next day early morning we took off by cheap local bus for Modica, which we already wrote of, for the feast of San Giorgio. We feel you can't go wrong using Siracusa as a base if you have to. But we think our choice of Modica was the best : Ragusa seems too large and too praised (we never got there) and Noto, which everyone seems to love, to us after Modica seemed too flat and too sterile in its perfection and way too tourist oriented. In contrast Modica seemed its own town and Ortygia, and the other less fancy parts of Siracusa, did too.

Our return to Siracusa was wonderful. The hotel Posta is a former fascist mansion built in the late 1800s, not that perfectly restored, wonderful personnel, and a bit cheaper because it is on the border of Ortygia, an "island" linked by three different bridges to Siracusa. We liked that: it was a quick walk to the train station, the adjacent bus "station" which is really an open air bus stop for two different companies, and to EuropCar car rental. Also it was not far at all, past a few blocks of shabby tall apartment complexes, to the old Greek ruins of an old theater, a gladiator complex and big quarry/caves. Nor also to the quirky but really pretty great archaeological museum which has lots of "stuff" from 5000 years ago on but also some amazing classic Greek sculpture, pots and decorations. Loved the excellent parts of this.

We had some really nice meals in Ortygia, think we wrote about one restaurant run by the twin of David Tachera, and also we really enjoyed the traditional puppet show. They used music between acts that sounded like it was taken from lord of the rings but the action, costuming and drama of the marionettes, which is old medieval plays about Charlemagne's knights and magical figures from china and the Arab world, was right on.

Our advice for eating in Ortygia would probably be to avoid the places right on the water with high turnover, or too near the Duomo, instead roam the smaller alleys and check menus since they all look really great and we were not disappointed for any of the four meals we ate there but we liked the more touristy spots, the least. Also we enjoyed the early morning fish markets where we first got to hear the bizarre fishmongers' calls, advertising in a long singsong what they've got what it's gonna cost ya and why you should get it right then and there. Hearing it is the equivalent of watching peacocks strut their stuff. Very macho and showy. Also there are some bizarre, costly foods: yellow sea urchin eggs scooped out of the black spiny shells by the eyedropper sized scoop spoons, sold in tiny plastic cups for ten euros.