12c: Ortigia Cathedral and walking tour day

Ortigia: Sat Sept 17 – Wed Sept 21

Accommodation link.

Monday 19^th September

I know this might be becoming monotonous, but it was another glorious morning. We opted to stay in the shade for our morning walk so navigated our way along the harbour and then through the narrow laneways towards the morning markets. This took up both sides of just one, relatively short, section of a street but there was a good array of fresh fish, fruit, vegetables and spices available and all looked to be of the highest quality.

We had a 5pm walking tour booked in and so we spent the morning traipsing through the narrow lanes and checking out the shops. We also spent an hour visiting the Ortigia Cathedral and this was well worth the time due to its most interesting and varied history.

The Cathedral was built on the remains of the Temple of Athena, and the Temple had been built in 480 BC by the Greek Tyrant of Syracuse as a way to celebrate the defeat of Carthaginians. One of the most impressive features about the Cathedral was that many of the original Temple columns remain visible in the Cathedral walls. The Temple was subsequently converted to a church in the 6th century, following the Byzantine Conquest, but the church was then converted to a mosque in 878 following a siege by Ottomans; where the Arabs carried off 5,000 lb worth of gold! It wasn’t until 1091, following the Norman Conquest, that the mosque was returned to being a church as it remains today. There has been a lot of damage over the years since then, primarily from a number of earthquakes, and the current cathedral exterior was rebuilt in the 18th century in the baroque style.

I would highly recommend a visit to this beautiful Cathedral if you are ever in the area but would advise to pay the €3 extra and get the audio guide as the explanation provides just the right amount of detail and is very clear and easy to understand.

It was after 11 am by the time we left the Cathedral so we wandered the streets a little more and had a cooling granita before heading back to the apartment for a rest. It was another hot one today and we were pacing ourselves.

We headed back out at around 2 pm to find somewhere to have a bite to eat but neither of us were very hungry; this heat does not make for a big appetite. We decided to head back to the street market area where we’d been this morning and found quite a few shop front stalls set up where the proprietor just sells whatever they’ve cooked: there’s no menu, they just cook out the front of a little ‘hole in the wall’ type shop front and you can stop, sit and eat if you want. The place we stopped at had three items on offer: melon wrapped with prosciutto, caponata (mixed grilled vegetables) and mixed fried fish so we had a bit of each and it was absolutely delicious. Grandpa was doing the cooking. One son was helping serve and our waiter turned out to be a friend of the family. He told me later he’d been sitting down eating himself and only got up to help serve because they had become busy. I had thought he looked somewhat over dressed and a bit out of place for the occasion; he had movie star looks and would have been more at home on a Hollywood film set! Most other diners were enjoying the fun of this place too and taking photos so I got one of the chef and waiter odd-couple myself. It was then back home to rest and cool down before our 5 pm walking tour.

Our guide for the 90 minute walking was Sebastiano and he took us past some sites we’d already seen but down some streets we had not yet walked. It was a pleasant 90 minute tour and one new bit of information I picked up was the population data. There are roughly 120,000 in all of Syracuse with only about 4,000 of them living in Ortigia and Ortigia bustles in the warmer months but is relatively quiet in winter. We had already found today a bit quiet given many many museums, restaurants, cafes and shops were closed due to being a Monday. One amusing thing along the way of our walking tour was that we struck upon yet another wedding at the Ortigia Cathedral and then happened upon the happy couple several times later as they traversed the city with their numerous photographers. It seemed that each bridesmaid, and the married couple of course, had their own photographer and entourage and the married couple had the drone thing happening too! The tour finished up just after 6.30 pm and so it was then back to the apartment for a night of dining in, of course striking the newly married couple on our way home!