Boring City?

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We drove a lot yesterday, so we decide to stay closer to home today and do some relaxing. The clouds and rain of the last two days have cleared and it's sunny again. We retrieve our trusty Fiat 500 and set off for a beach on the opposite side of the bay from Ortigia. It's supposed to be only a short ten minute drive away ... and it probably would have been if not for the inevitable traffic jam. This is the result of another road rule here, this time regarding what you're supposed to do if you need to pick up or drop off passengers or goods in a street that's only wide enough for one lane of traffic. It seems to be mandatory in such situations to come to a complete stop without any warning in the very middle of the street, and then to take as long as you possibly can to pick up or drop off whoever or whatever. It's apparently particularly important to take even longer than you would normally if you're holding up a very long line of traffic.

We stop to fill up with petrol. The petrol station has bowsers, but no buildings. The attendant needs to give me change, which he goes to get from a bus driver whose vehicle just happens to be parked nearby. I assume the bus must move occasionally which leaves us a bit curious as to what he would have done if it hadn't been there.

There seems to be a good supply of very fancy looking villas between the road and the beach, which look like they probably belong to the Siracusa elite. Some of them could also possibly belong to members of the Corleone family, so we decide that we must remember to be careful not to trespass; I'm not sure the owner of our apartment would be all that happy if he had to clean up a horse's head after we leave. There's also a luxury five star hotel here, and the street outside it's lined with spectacular bonsaied olive trees. We spend a pleasant morning relaxing and swimming at the attractive sandy beach which is on a small cove.

We decide to spend the afternoon on Siracusa's hop on hop off tourist bus, which takes us from Ortigia up through into the main part of the town. We pass the very distinctive and modern conical shaped Church, the Santuario Madonna Delle Lacrime, which is visible from all over town. Next stop is the so called tomb of Archimedes. It seems that Siracusa was colonised by the Greeks, and Archimedes is its most famous citizen. He was born here is 287 BC and died here when the Romans captured the city in 212 BC. It's apparently unlikely that this is his actual burial place; it was the most prominent ancient Greek tomb in the city, so the locals decided to just assume that its most famous citizen must have been buried there.

We were given headsets as we got on the bus so that we could listen to commentary as we drove around. The commentary's interspersed with classical music, but we seem to be hearing lots of music and precious little commentary. Surely the tour operators could have put together more than a few minutes of narrative on the more than two thousand years of the place's history. Maybe it's been a bit boring here over the journey, although if it was that boring we're starting to wonder why anyone still lives here.

We get off at the massive Siracusa Archaeological Park. First stop are the ruins of a Roman amphitheatre which dates back to the third century AD. Next up is the Ear of Dionysius. This is a large cave which was carved into the rock during Greek or Roman times for use as a water storage, and is in the shape of a human ear. It was named after Dionysius I of Siracusa, who was apparently someone best avoided. The original cave had excellent acoustics, and it's said that Dionysius used it as a prison so that he could hear the prisoners' screams as they were tortured. We move onto the site's highlight - a massive and very well preserved third century BC Greek amphitheatre.

We dine at a restaurant in a courtyard near the Piazza Duomo. We've started to note a very distinct pattern when we order drinks here. Issy usually orders whiskey, and I usually order beer. These are usually brought out by someone other than the person who took the order, and I'm usually given both. We wonder why this is. The waiters must presumably think that it's more probable that a man would order both a whiskey and a beer, than it is that a woman would order either. I don't think that too many of the waiters here have been to Australia.

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