Our little apartment is comfortable and in the perfect location, though to be honest Ortigia is very small and it would be hard to be located anywhere distant from the historic quarter. Our accommodation included breakfast, which turned out to be available from a cafe just down the road in the central Piazza de Archimede. There were three options including coffee, juice, granita, a sweet or savoury pastry or a brioche. We opted for the option with the granita, which our host explained is a traditional Sicilian breakfast!
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| Our granita/brioche/coffee option for breakfast |
In one word, the granita was sublime. We both chose a almond one and I'm now very keen to try and make some during summer when we get back to Nelson. The flavour was so almondy, which we both like. So breakfast was great, if rather on the lightweight sweet side.
Our B&B is housed in a building dated 1696. Plazas are tucked within the maze, as are a number of sites of Greek ruins, churches and large public buildings. We spent a very enjoyable few hours wandering around about and soaking up the atmosphere and trying to learn a little about the history of the place. Ortigia is the historical centre of Syracuse. It's on an island which could hold a large population in ancient times and includes the refurbished remains on a large fort on its eastern peninsula. Civilisation here dates back 2700 years. It started life as Greek but was later taken over by the Romans, Vandals, Goths, Arabs, Normans and Byzantines! Evidence of these cultures are everywhere.
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| Lintel of our building, showing it to be constructed in 1696 |
A highlight of the morning was visiting the Jewish baths (mikveh). The Jews dug 18m down to capture spring water and sculpt out small individual baths in which to ritually purify themselves. The last Jews were forced to leave by the Spanish in 1492, and there are still none living in Syracuse. The baths had been concealed at the time, in the hope they would return one day, but they never did. They were only found by accident in 1986 when a woman began converting the old building into a hotel above the baths. 156 truckloads of spoil had to be removed! A long staircase hewn out of rock leads below to the bathing room.
The large fort, Castello Maniace, was constructed in 1232 on the end of the island. We did a quick tour but it was very hot so we bailed relatively quickly and set off again to see the Arethusa Pool, a very old freshwater spring full of fish, ducks and papyrus.
Next priority was a search for somewhere to have a bite for lunch in the shade. Walking the streets here is very obvious that the Ortigians, and probably Sicilians in general, have a very sweet tooth. The offers of sweet food abound, be it in the form of a wide range of pastries, cannolis (filled with sweetened ricotta cheese and all its variations), and marzipan. We tried a different traditional food for lunch - arancini. These are balls made from rice, filled with a savoury of choice, rolled in breadcrumbs and deep fried. They can be filled with spinach, pistachio, tomato, ragu, mozzarella and so on. They cost just a few euros and are very tasty to munch on.
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| Shop window displaying all manner of candies and sweet treats |
The hot sun was testing our limits so we retreated to our room for a few hours R&R, and a wee nana nap to make sure we didn't fall asleep during the World Rugby Cup quarter final.
We'd been following a bit of a tour around the island to see everything and had missed out on the main cathedral and square, so headed that way as the sun was getting low around 5:30pm. The square was beautiful in the low sun, and there was a cannoli shop at the far end of it that seems to be a favourite. Indeed they were good, but not as good as my memory of one in 2011 in Taormina!
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| Cannoli - candied fruit, and pistacchio |
We tend to avoid churches, as we have seen more than enough over the years, and also find the opulence of most to be excessive. However the one here had a fascinating history. It was once the 6th C BC Greek temple of Athena. The exterior Doric columns can be seen on both sides of the exterior walls.
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| Greek temple columns inside the Ortigia cathedral |
By now it was passeggiata time, so we stopped off at our breakfast cafe-bar for an hour to watch the world go by. We ordered a couple of Aperol sodas, and they came with not half a dozen potato chips, but half a meal's worth of free food. A lovely surprise and very pleasant at the end of a hot day.
