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| We reluctantly say goodbye to Antonio and Francesca at the Hotel Relais Modica....Antonio helps us carry our luggage down the 72 stairs....and we head off for Siracusa. Never wanting to repeat the same route twice if possible, we take a "slow route" through the town of Palazzo Acreide; this lets us take advantage of another beautiful sunny day as we drive through the beautiful and varied southeastern Sicily countryside. We stop several times to take photographs of the flower-filled fields but the pictures never seem to convey the real scenery. Palazzo Acreide is an important Greek archeological site--it was built over the Greek city of Akrai. It stretches across the top of a high ridge above the narrow green valley in a very commanding position. We drive up to the centro, circle the main square and continue to climb to the top of the town--following the directional signs to the Greek theater. When we arrive there, we are surprised to see a parking lot full of buses and hundreds of tourists walking into the excavations. Parking is a problem, so we decide to put off a visit to this site to another trip and head back to the main piazza. There are a surprising number of tourists there also...we stop at a bar for tea and cornetto and find that the staff can speak English and French. We arrive in Siracusa about noon.....just in time to negotiate the mid-day traffic in the center of the modern city. We ease our way through town and reach the centro storico on the island of Ortygia. Ortygia was one of our favorite places on our Sicily trip nine years ago, so we are looking forward to our return visit. We are staying at the Hotel Roma, right in the middle of town behind the Piazza Duomo. We follow the signs through several piazzas and the hotel materializes right before us....with an empty parking space right in front of the entrance. We check in, unpack and head out for a walk and some lunch. I am very surprised by the number of foreign tourists walking the streets on this Friday.....there are both individuals and bus groups crowding the street that leads to the Duomo. We walk to toward the waterfront and decide to get a sandwich from an "alimentari" and eat on a bench overlooking the water. We also buy some strawberries from a fruit vendor and enjoy our "picnic" on the windy "lungomare". We stroll around town after lunch to the Fountain of Arethusa....one of the Ortygia landmarks connected to the Greek myth of Alpheus and Arethusa. Here is an explanation.... Arethusa , in Greek mythology, nymph favored by Artemis and loved by the river god Alpheus. While Arethusa was bathing in Alpheus' stream, he rose up and tried to abduct her, but she fled under the ocean to the isle of Ortygia. There Artemis changed her into a fountain. But Alpheus followed her and was himself changed into a river and united with her. In ancient times it was believed that the waters of the Alpheus River flowed beneath the sea from Greece and reappeared in the fountain of Arethusa in the harbor of Syracuse. We walk to the north side of the island, escaping most of the tourists and pass through the old Jewish section--Via Giudecca--on our way back to the hotel. Later in the afternoon, we walk through the commercial section of Ortygia and stop to find out about the Greek plays being performed at the Greek Theater in Siracusa. Tonight is Medea (in repertory with Oedipus Rex), it is at 6:30 and there are tickets available. We decide that we would like to go so we go back to the hotel, get the car and drive into Siracusa proper to the Greek Theater. We take a somewhat roundabout route and are momentarily "trapped" in a neighborhood with few through streets...but we right ourselves and arrive at the theater in plenty of time. We are not sure how long we will last (I orginally think the play might be in Greek, Diana is sure it will be in Italian, which is the case) so we buy general admission tickets for Euro 25 each and walk into the theater....There are lot of school groups in the audience and the theater is about 2/3 full when the performance starts. There is a big crane in back of the stage with a cable still attached to the set for Medea. This is how they change the sets for the different plays. The play is extremely interesting and it is a thrill to be watching a Greek play in one of the theaters where they were premiered over 2000 years before. I call Seth in Chicago before the play begins and he gives us a quick refresher about the plot of Medea. They were selling the text (in Italian) and we wish we had bought one....it would have helped us to know at a minimum which characters were on stage at any given time. We find the leading lady pretty easy to follow and we enjoy the play...although I have to stand up (we are in the last row) because the hard stone seats are not the most comfortable. We leave after about 90 minutes...the sun has set and it is getting cooler--plus we think it might be wise to avoid the traffic jam that will likely happen at the end of the performance. But we are very glad that we decided to attend..... There is a lot of traffic on the way back anyway...Saturday night in Siracusa....and we are a little late for our 9 pm reservation at Trattoria da Mariano--one of the Slow Food recommendations in Ortygia. We have to wait...da Mariano is very popular--with both Italians and foreigners. The place is packed and we are seated after about 20 minutes. The restaurant specializes in the cooking of the Ibla Mountains (near Ragusa) and every table gets a nice antipasto platter...sundried tomatoes, cheese, a frittata, a potato salad, etc.--very rustic but very good. For pastas, we have a ravioli (somewhat ordinary) and a spaghetti with sun dried tomatoes which is very tasty. I have a sausage for a second which I like and Diana's lamb dish is more baked than roasted but is fine. The house wine is drinkable--and I drink more than usual because I am trying to block out the conversation of the group of six Americans who are seated behind us. The whole meal is an experience...the staff is harried but friendly.....and it is mostly fun. We get the check without much delay--this is a place that can turn over tables three times in an evening--and walk back to the hotel through a quiet Piazza Duomo. |
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