Siracusa

Yesterday was a beachy sort of day - and I'm also very glad to report that yesterday I discovered that what looked like a hole-in-the-wall down the road is really a nifty little pizzeria/tavola calda that does excellent pizzas in about 2 minutes flat and a good antipasto.

Today we went to Siracusa. It is quite late - I have been working, if you want to know the truth - and so reporting will be quite brief.

Just a bit.

We went to the famed Arcaelogical Park in Siracusa, in which can be seen remnants of a Greek amphitheather, a Roman theater, a huge altar, and some other things. It was rather underwhelming - Agrigento was, I felt, more interesting. Perhaps part of my underwhelmed-ness had to do with this:





Yes, the Greek theater is still used in the summer, so many of the seats were covered with wood and the state was modern. You could still get a sense of the size of it, but it was rather startling to trudge up the hill and see this.

The Ear of Dionysius was interesting, though:













A father and son in front of the image.

Then a walk down the block to St. Giovanni - the church (now  in ruins, mostly because of the 1693 earthquake, but still consecrated) and the catecombs. It was one of the highlights of the trip, and certainly brought both previous parts of the day together in an interesting way. I can't speak highly enough of the tour and the tour guide, who took note of our languages and switched seemlessly from Italian to English over and over. I had never visited any of the more extensive catacombs in Rome - only the Scavi tour under St. Peter's, which is something, but is a small area. This is enormous. I could not take any photos in the catacombs, so we just have this.



And this: See you on the other side- well, the same side. Or the other side? Who knows...