the choice to saunter

Ortigia is such a luscious and interesting and small place. Though from across the bridge and off beyond the station, major major walk away, the 15,000 seat Greek theatre beckons. As do so many other things wave and invite. Around the corner, less than 100 metres away, the Palazzo Bellomo invites us in, to see the regional museum of contemporary and medieval art.

But no, we pitched for a saunter and the sun, going 250 metres to the promontory at mouth of the Porto Grande, to visit the Castello Maniace. Photos of geometrical and architectural form, in the main. See how sunny. We had our wonderings about walking in the footsteps of Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery, or...

On the way home for siesta, we chose an extraordinary place to eat, owned by he who turned out to be the sculptor with his studio below us here. Wonderful food in imaginative setting.

This photo below shows very elegant and clever modern drainage - these in terracotta but the same unit construction different scale used for example to carry waste to the ground from multilevel building works

and here to enter the restaurant, carved waiter holding embroidered menus

wattle is in bloom

A film of where we are

Here is a little film made yesterday at lunchtime. My voice and brain creaky with a cold.

Ortigia, we are told, was almost deserted in the end of the 1980s into the 90s, at one time population around 12,000, but in that period reduced to 1-2000 and a dangerous place for being so deserted. The population moved off the island into other areas of Siracusa and beyond in search of work. The island is now well on its way to recovery with investment from abroad, Rome and north Italy.  The relatively empty look of the streets contributed to also by the fact that this is late winter, well away from the tourist season. We had to travel at this time for practical reasons and with a preference for cool weather. So we experience these weeks at 17 to 20 degrees celsius in Sicily, to arrive in Rome in the best of times, March.

Anyway, here below is the movie we made yesterday... click on the little four arrow thing in the bottom right to see it full screen. Let me add these points to the commentary.

• When the camera looks down at the papyrus you are looking into a spring which was there when the Greeks arrived in 800BC, and at the plant that was there in the spring when they arrived... hence the question, who brought the papyrus, which one might expect to see in Egypt. That is also the level of the ground at the time of the Greek arrival.
• There is no getting away from the depth of history. While most of the great buildings are just 300-500 years old, the harbour we look out on in the movie was the scene of the second battle of Siracusa in August 413BC, when the Athenian fleet was trapped in the harbour by the Siracusa fleet, a battle between 160 triremes. An act of subterfuge enabled the Romans to get inside the walls in 212BC and contrary to the directions of the Roman commander Marcellus, five times Consul of the Roman Republic, a Roman soldier killed the head of defence science in Siracusa, Archimedes. Montgomery's Eighth Army took Siracusa on the first day of the invasion of Sicily by allied forces in July 1943. 

Now to watch...

Siracusa

Eccoci, a Siracusa, finalemente, recuperandoci dopo uno lungo viaggio. Here we are at last, recovering after a long trip. Il nostro apartamento our apartment a via Roma 152, Ortigia, Siracusa, is a few doors from the sea and the most wonderful 8am sitting place.

Siamo fuori a quest'ora della nostra prima mattina perche il mercato a Ortigia si apri alle 7 ogni giorno.

We are out at this early hour on our first morning because the market in Ortigia opens at 7 every day.

Raggiungere il mercato abbiamo usato il Lungomare. Qui, di sotto - le scale? Archimede le ha usato? 

Here we look back at the peninsula forming the mouth of the harbour on the other side, a small harbour in which 2425 years ago, Siracusa destroyed the armed might of Athens in a battle involving 162 triremes.

There are some modern decorations along the way, variation from the dominant Baroque this quarter of the city.

We were able to buy the utterly fresh at the market.

and have a tableload of food at home