Trips

Sun., 10/3 - Siracusa and Ortigia, Italy

The Artemis arrived in Italy this morning and docked in Siracusa in the canal that separates the island of Ortigia (or Ortygia) from Siracusa. Ortigia is the historic center of Syracusa.

It was pouring buckets of rain so our leaders delayed our departure for about 45 min. until the rain let up and eventually stopped about the time we were disembarking to tour. Our local guide took us across one of the three bridges over the canal and onto the island. This took us past the statue of native son Archimedes.

Our guide led us through several narrow streets of limestone buildings. Many of the homes have potted plants that bring some greenery to the alleyways. We arrived at the Fountain of Diana and heard the story of the two lovers who where turned into rivers “to flow together for eternity.”

Map of Siracusa and Ortigia
Canal and one of the bridges to Ortigia	Statue of native son Archimedes
The first stop on our tour was at the ruins (6th century BCE) of the Greek temple dedicated to Apollo. It was built by the Greek settlers, converted by the Romans, made into a church by the Normans, and a Mosque by the Arabs. It fell to ruins in the 1693 earthquake that devastated the town. (This area was also hit by 69 bombs during WWII.)
Greek Temple of Apollo ruins	Greek Temple of Apollo ruins
Greek Temple of Apollo ruins	Greek Temple of Apollo ruins
The Watcher	Typical plant filled street
Amazing how many cacti we saw.	Fountain of Diana
Street scene	A bookstore
Creative plant container	The Duomo is located on a large piazza. It was originally a temple of Minerva, but was converted into the Church of St. Lucy. St. Lucy was tortured for not marrying a rich noble. Her eyes were plucked out and her statue shows her always holding a plate with two eyeballs. A bone of her forearm is a relic in a glass case in a side chapel.
St. Lucy's forearm bone relic	Church of Santa Lucia alla Badia
Nice sign	Fresh water pond filled with catfish and Egyptian papyrus. This was once the laundry where the women washed clothes in fresh water.
Ducks and a swimming rat, in addition to catfish and papyrus	Fish boat and crew
View of the waterfront while sailing away	Castello Maniace at the harbor entrance

Siracusa was interesting. It was the most important Greek city outside of Greece at one time. It is said to be the birthplace of Greek comedy theater and the only school of Greek classical drama outside of Athens. However, we did not see any evidence of this on our short tour.

The long sail from Sicily to Otranto, on the heal of the boot of Italy, was calm as a lake, fortunately.

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