After leaving lunch at Casa Bianca, we headed to Siracusa and the small island of Ortigia. Ortigia is the historical center of Siracusa (which is also shown as Syracuse on some maps). In Greek times, it was much bigger and was the original Greek settlement on Sicily.
Ortigia is an island, over just a narrow channel off of Syracuse (Siracusa) which is on the southern east coast of Sicily. In fact if you look at the map, we were in the center yesterday at the Villa Romana del Casale. After 2 nights in Ortigia, we will be up the coast in Taormina and then Catania after that to finish out the trip all on the east coast.
In this very quaint street picture, we are gathering outside of our hotel to have a tour of the city to get our bearings. We are so lucky to be in such beautiful places.
In one of the town piazzas (town square) - Piazza Archimede, was this fountain of Diana - the huntress.
A couple was doing the tango in front of the Cathedral of Siracusa.
The city is built right up to the coastline! That is the castle at the far end!
Lots and lots of boats were all around the island.
Another view of the castle.
Above, Christine and I toast our first night in Ortigia on the rooftop of our hotel. Below, I went out to see the morning sun on the water.
It was Saturday morning May 24, and as a group we headed out to a puppet theatre show in the old Jewish quarter. Puppet shows were used for the first time in the 1800s. In keeping with tradition, these puppets, over 140 of them, were handcraft in a workshop across the street.
The show was all in Italian, but from the music and the tone of the voices, we could follow the story. A little bit of romance.
A lot of sword fighting .
Even a scene with the king and the pope and their attending knights. They all looked about 4-5 feet tall on stage!
But when the puppeteer came out afterwards, we saw they were only about 2 feet tall. The scenery and the stage was set in such a perspective that everything looked bigger and taller!
After the fun puppet show, we met up with a local guide to learn some of the history of the island. Since we were in the old Jewish quarter, we started there. In the 1st century AD, there were approximately 3000 Jews living in the town and it pretty much stayed that way until 1492. In 1492 was the Spanish Inquisition and Jews were given the choice to convert or leave. They have not been back since then.
Originally though, before that, Jews, Muslims and Christian’s lived well together in what was considered a very tolerant society.
In the picture below, the Church was originally the Jewish synagogue.
Fresh water springs are all under Oritiga, one was a very holy spring for Jews located underground here. We could have gone to see it later, but we ran out of time.
We wandered some more through the Jewish quarter.
After leaving the Jewish quarter we walked towards the Cathedral and learned that in 1693 there was a bad earth quake in southern Italy, 53,000 were killed in the area. Many of the buildings were destroyed.
We loved the balcony railing and their decorative stonework below. The funny bumped out railings were because of the women’s dresses were so large they needed the room to move.
Onward to the ancient Cathedral of Siracusa. It is the seat of the Catholic arch bishop, but in ancient times it was the site of a Greek doric temple built in the 5th century BC for Athena - the goddess of war. So worship has been going on in the same spot for over 2500 years…. This is some of its history…..Today this is the church is dedicated to the Virgin Mary. In Roman times it was the church of Minerva. After Byzantine era, Arabs came and it became a mosque. Then the Norman’s came and it became a church again.
You can see the old Greek columns both outside of the cathedral and inside of the cathedral.
The altar is done in the baroque style. Done during the counter reformation, the Catholic Church used this style to try to impress the people.
St Lucy was blinded and is often depicted holding two eyes. This cathedral has a relic of St Lucy in the form of her humor bone.
I loved this baptismal font. It is an ancient Hellenistic vase.
We were lucky because we were able to go below the church to the carved out bomb shelters. Our guide told us that they anre rarely open. Italy was very poor during the time of WWII, but the government carved out of stone these massive bomb shelters. This one could house thousands of people. Throughout the town, there were enough bomb shelters to house 10,000 people.
Very very sobering.
Another fresh water pool dedicated to the goddess Artemis is shown below. She represents the city of Ortigia.
We ran into a bride throwing her bouquet.
And just down the road we came across a 6th century BC temple to Apollo. It is the oldest in Sicily. You can tell it is older because the columns aren’t constructed in sections.
After a bit of a rest and lunch we headed to a local artisans house and were able to make our own ceramic tile piece.
Christine and I had different patterns
Who knew we would have an arts and crafts project in the middle of a Sicily tour.
End of another fabulous day in Sicily !
But wait! While eating dinner we found out that there was an ancient spring below our restaurant and we had to go check it out! Bummer, it was closed, but we got a picture of the statue through the glass floor.
Making our way home, we felt safe with the local polizia presence…….good night!
That's a really tiny polizia car 😄
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