Ortigia/Syracusa stay at home tourists

Today we have decided to stay in Ortigia and play tourists here, we have a few things we have not done yet that we will quickly run out of time if we don’t get to it.  Start off this morning with our walk and decide to go out to breakfast for croissants.  Once again we don’t pick the best spot, but it was still nice to get out for breakfast. 

This morning lots of people were buying fish directly from the fishermen.

Very calm in the harbour

Lots of local men buying fish directly from the fishermen

Love his plastic bags to cover his sneakers. Must be a Sunday helper

Going to park the boat.

Today's catch or part of it. Many kinds of fish

Octopus was still moving 

Sea snails

Buzz of activity

Also going on this morning was an official fishing derby of some type. They were all on the rocks next to the underground parking. Some of the fisherman had 4 or 5 rods and all kinds of equipment

A few shots from this morning and the visit at the old Market building where there are some organic farmers selling their food. We bought some asparagus and a loaf of bread.

Lots of sparrows in town last 2 weeks

The ceiling at one of the Palazzo entrance

Large Easter eggs

Market at the old Mercato Building

Anyone for a 4 liter jug of wine.

Very tender

First off as tourists we head to the Jewish Baths. There is a section of the island that was once inhabited by Jewish, and in the 1980s when a hotel was doing renovations they discovered a stairwell.  Turns out the stairwell lead to the baths that were under water when discovered, but when pumped out there are 4 public baths and 2 private ones.  They are about 60 steps down to get to the baths.  We have never seen anything like this, it was a great tour.  Unfortunately no pictures allowed, but the story was amazing. 

Next we went to a museum that is right around the corner from us to learn more about Archimedes, who is from Siracusa.  Archimedes was a great mathematician, probably most famous for the first calculation of pi.  He is also famous for his puzzle  the Stomachion, there was one there for us to try, we didn’t solve it, and were very discouraged to find out there are over 20,000 ways to solve it! The museum also features some of Leonardo Da Vinci works. Once again no pictures inside the museum.

Now time to return home for some lunch, our leftover pizza from last night.  I had a rest while Andre went out to get some pictures.  Nicest thing about being a tourist in your own city, you can always come home for a clean bathroom, and a nap is quite easy to fit in. The fishing derby was all over, so he went only the breakwater to take pictures instead

Lots of stray cats, some of them are scruffy looking

This is to prove to Wendy that I was not alone on the rocks

I wonder if they are from the big boat

Floating Condos

Our next visit is to the Catacombs, which are in new Siracusa, not on the Island we are staying on.  It is about a 30 minute walk to get there.  We arrive just after it is opening from lunch break and are lucky because a tour is just starting, we didn’t know you could only visit on a tour.  This is the first time it has really felt busy, there must have been 50 of us on the tour.  On the Jewish bath tour this morning there were 5 of us.  Again no pictures allowed, but it was another good tour.  The tombs were all cleared out during the WWII and put in a mass grave in the local cemetery so that the area could be used as a bomb shelter.  There were 10,000 tombs, but they are not sure how many bodies because many tombs held more than one person.

Lots of leftover wine.

Roman ruins near the church

Got destroyed twice by earthquakes, this is the church on top of the catacombs

Pictures of pictures of the catacombs

On our way home we passed by the soccer stadium, a game was going on and lots of cheering, we would have gone in but we the ticket windows were all closed.  A few police around, wonder if it gets crazy after the games, but it was a Sunday afternoon.

We were in this area to visit the Santa Lucia church, but it wasn’t open.  A nice park, with a teeter tooter, that we decided to use to put to use what we had learnt from our time in the Archimedes museum this morning.

A dozen or so of these went by, must be a club of Fiat 500

The Baptistry at St Lucia Basilica

St Lucia Basilica

Walked back down along the water.  We found the pathway that we are going to rent bikes later in the week to go on.  So much garbage around on the streets, and the beach, it really is sad to see.  

Father & son

Ortigia from the other side of the harbour

Shows the construction of the typical boats

These are used in competition during celebrations/festival

Selfie reflection in a window

Warning sign, love it. No ledges to stop you

We did need to stop for an ice cream, I had the most delicious chocolate and pistachio, 36 choices at this ice cream shop, and Andre chose coffee, guess so he wouldn’t have to share with me.

a scoop for every kind of gelato. No worries about cross contamination with nuts, kinda! 

Back in town and we see that the big cruise ship is still in town that we saw earlier today.  We also found out this is not any ordinary cruise ship, this ship you buy your cabin, it is like a condo/apartment.  We may just need to look into this for retirement.

We also see our first huge yacht in town.  We have seen pictures of lots of yachts in town all lined up, but this is the first we see.  Andre googled it, $20,000,00USD to buy it used, we are just a little short.

First one I have seen this trip

Picked up 2 arinchini from the pizza place on the way home, to go with asparagus, from the market, and rice planned for supper.  What a weird combination, but it will do.  Forgot to mention that the old market is only open on Sundays and this was our first visit to it, the regular market is much nicer and bigger. 

It will be nice tomorrow to not have to go return the rental car.  We can do our normal walk and a market visit to stock up for our last week here, wow it is going by too fast!