Connberry2012: Syracuse

2/11 Syracuse

Even though the campsite reminded us so much of home, the sounds were all different with minimal bird song and stray dogs howling all night.

All of us had sore thighs from yesterday’s efforts, so we instead woke to a cuppa tea under the gums rather than exercise. The views across the top of the village of Castilglione di Sicilia to Etna were breathtaking.

Once fed, the kids started their revision for year end maths exams in 2 weeks and then we set off for a campsite in Syracuse, the ancient Greek town that once rivaled Athens. The drive reminded us of Spain with massive roads & tunnels and enormous concrete skeletons, only half built then abandoned, and littered across a wasteland cluttered with rubbish and plastic. Rounded Etna to our west and saw extra smoking craters, bidding it good bye.

We could see the finger of Ortygia (old town of Syracuse)…..

but were met with blocks & washouts and so were sent along several detours on pocked roads into run down sprawling dirty suburbs where so much seems started but unfinished.

Plastic Farming

We pulled into a polluted CONAD carpark to top up groceries and then followed TomTom to a campsite, not a sosta, with much needed laundry facilities. BUT…… it turned out to be a grungy concrete parking lot with not even a loo….but a few precious leafy gums down the end where we parked. Doggy & scary so often sits alongside extraordinary history & beauty. It can be tiring and we’re getting homesick.

So we chugged about making a healthy late lunch feast of mince & spinach roll with garlic in the BBQ, as well stirfried vegies, before tying up the laces to walk into the old town. Cars with their bumpers taped up, or not and just scraping & screeching along the road, their shapes dented and mangled beyond recognition drive alongside an abundance of Audis, BMWs and Mercs with highly coiffeured drivers pressed to mobiles and often chubby bespectacled kids eating in the back seat. The littered streets are laced by top fashion boutiques & trattorias full of consumers. A chalk and cheese that confuses Jen in particular.

Reaching the little finger of land poking out into the harbour, historical Ortygia, one is met by the Tempio di Apollo, a Greek temple dating from the 6^th century BC.

ex-Greek Temple of Apollo

All that remains are bits of massive columns that Wil reckons fell away more easily than the Roman stuff because they didn’t use concrete. Past more incredible shops and small dingy alleys like those in Morocco, we found the beautiful B&B that houses the most ancient Miqwe (Jewish baths) in Europe. They were only discovered again 15 years ago when the developers of the current very ritzy B&B were excavating.

Jewish Baths

Apparently, the Jews carved out the baths in 70 AD on the springs of an ancient Greek well. But when the Spanish Inquistion of Ferdinand & Isabella cleared them out in the 1490s, the Jews covered them up. When the Spanish fortified the island, they blocked the springs natural drainage channels and so now the hotel pumps all day, turns off at night during which time the water rises to knee level and then the morning sees the drainage start over. Jewish women had to cleanse here in the cold & dark, naked in the foetal position after menstruation, childbirth and before matrimony. The water is so pure that the baths look empty until you see the faint surface ripple as the springs bubble gently. The kids were confused about why the women were perceived to be dirty at these normal biological times.

last wear for those pants

So everyone has been here from the Carthaginians, the Normans, the Arabs, the Romans, it was once the capital of the Byzantines before the move to Turkey, the Spanish, the Poms….. With the most spectacular blended architectural piece in our opinion being the glorious honey & cream coloured Cathedral with it’s Spanish facade and a most magnificent Greek columned shell. Great people such as Archimedes, Plato & Cicero hung around here too.

Syracuse Cathedral with ancient Greek Pillars

We popped through onto the Passeggio and watched an incredible sunset eating our first Sicilian specialty, an ice-cream hamburger in honour of Wil’s birthday tomorrow, whilst gazing at the large Greek fortress that caps the island. First one takes a large sweet brioche dusted with icing sugar, cuts it in half and stuffs in enormous scoops of gelati. Wil chose tiramisu gelati…. and couldn’t finish it!