Hot, hot, hot

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Geo: 37.0851, 15.273

We got up , had breakfast and headed out to visit the archeological park. At the park is an amphitheater, the largest altar in the world, carved from one piece of limestone, the Greek theater, Ear of Dionysius and the museum. It was hot! It hit 90 degrees, with a high humidity. We were sweating like pigs!
The ear of Dionysius was a huge cave, formed when they took out large blocks of limestone to make all of the theaters and the altar. It must have been a hundred foot high inside. The Greek theater was really cool.
After slogging around for 4 hours, we headed back to our hotel for a little nap. Then we walked to old town Siracusa for a look see, and for some dinner. We decided to eat at an American resturant, and I had a hamburger, fries and a beer. The hamburger was OK. Hard to find any other food besides Italian in Italy.
We finally headed off to bed and awoke the next morning to clouds. We packed up and headed to our next stop in Taormina. We decided to skip Catania, as it was a large city and didn't have much to see. We found out that Taormina is a very popular place for the jet set. Oh,oh. Many hotels were in the $700 to $2500 range for one night. We managed to find a very nice place just outside of town for $200. Much better. We headed up to Taormina to look around. It has some nice old churches, plus a Greek theater and lots of small shops and narrow streets. We came back to our hotel, and even though it was cloudy and cool we went for a swim in the pool. The pool was 71 degrees. It took some time to get into it. Back to the room for a quick nap and off to dinner. We walked down to the water, found a nice resturant and ordered dinner. The outdoor patio was about 20 feet from the surf. I could have fished for my own dinner if I wanted to! The place had its own entertainment, too! We watched people park, double park and triple park in a small square, trying to buy dinner from a small shop. It was hilarious! Tomorrow we head back up to Messina and catch the ferry back to mainland Italy and off for the heel.

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Photos

An original road to the amphitheater
Notice the tracks in the rock from the wagons and chariots.