Saturday morning, after breakfast, we met our guide Patricia and began our tour of Ortigia (the neighborhood of Siracusa where we are staying). The city was still pretty quiet which was nice. We started at the castle at the end of the peninsula and worked in. Patricia explained to us the city history in its different occupations and how different religions factored into the architecture. We spent some time in the main church admiring the architecture and mosaics. She also took us around the Jewish and Arab quarters and explained how the style of their buildings were different. For example, they used the bottom floor of their building as a shop and lived above. She took us to the ruins of the temple of Apollo and the market. When she took us into a sandwich place a man behind the counter quickly shoved giant pieces of smoked mozzarella and onion jam at us. The weather was so beautiful the sky was the color blue or a windows stock wallpaper.
After we said goodbye to Patricia, we grabbed cones of fried calamari and then found a taxi to take us to the archeological park across town. The park was very interesting. There were VERY large sculptures throughout which was nice because the ruins and caves were mostly giant rock formations. There was a Greek theater and a Roman theater as well. From the park, we walked to the museum to see some of the found relics.
After taking a taxi from the museum back to the hotel and regrouping, we went out shopping in Ortigia. We took a break for a drink at a cafe and eventually made our way to dinner at Retro. Dinner was delicious: we had eggplant parmigiana, seafood risotto, seared tuna with onions and then a cannolo and maracapone with strawberries for dessert.
Sunday we are getting picked up and exploring Ragusa and Módica.
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