Day5

We check out of Valle degli Dei which really means we just find the first person who works there, give them the amount agreed upon in the emails when we made the reservation in cash, hop in the wee beemer and watch out Syracusa, here we come.

We didn’t have any weird adventures getting to Syracusa. We pretty much followed our map and our noses and with no more excitement than filling our tank for the first time, (these little euro-diesels go forever on a tank, you have to be careful to remember that they run on fuel at all!) we arrive at the hometown of Archimedes. Maybe we’re beginning to get the hang of this. We head for the island of Ortigia at the south end of Syracusa that we think is the old quarter with all the good ruins and stuff. Not a big town but definitely a tourist destination. We dodge the locals and the tour busses and locate a large parcheggio (parking area) that seemed to be near where we wanted to be. Parking is the pay first kind so we pay our 60 euro-cents per hour for 4 hours and put the ticket on the dashboard. We look at the map, turn in circles 3 times and since one direction is the sea, we go the other direction. We immediately find ourselves in the middle of a market. Everything from leather goods and toys to fresh fish and whole deli departments on wheels. Crowds of folks doing their shopping and merchants hawking their goods… very cool.     

We wander for a while and eat lunch.

We find a little shop where they sell pictures and stuff printed on papyrus ‘paper’. The little lady behind the counter responds to our questions about the stuff and gives us papyrus making 101 lesson right there in the shop. There is a stand of papyrus plants growing in a water feature down the street.

After a while we realize that the significant ruins and temples and stuff are at the other end of the other part of town. Back to the little silver car and we point ourselves through the middle of town. No problem. We arrive at the Parco Archeologico without getting even a little lost. We snag a decent parking place and get taken for two euros by a guy posing as a parking attendant. You have to walk past about a half kilometer of souvenir stands to get to the ticket office. Bah.

The ruins are well preserved and managed, (a rarity here). The Greek theatre is truly impressive, the ear of Dionysius is puzzling to me in that it is the cave left by quarrying stone for building the ancient structures but it looks so organic… there isn’t a straight line or corner in the thing. And it is huge !

Syracuse is the hometown of Archimedes, one of my historical heroes, the father of math and engineering and machines… right up there with MacGuyver in my book. Unfortunately the part of the Parco Archeologico with the tomb of Archimedes is closed and has been for a while. I cannot get very close. Bummed. They don’t really know where he was buried, it’s just called the tomb of Archimedes so … I guess it’s not so bad.

Syracuse turns out to be one of the prettiest and easiest towns to get around in so far. Very entertaining and almost relaxing. It is late afternoon when we head north towards Catania / Acireale area and our next B&B.