The Secret Staircase

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We've had a hectic couple of days so we decide to relax at the nice beach that we drove to on the other side of the bay from Ortigia earlier in the week. We're tired so we sleep in. As we're about to walk out the door we happen to read a notice that was sent to us when we booked the apartment advising us that the car park's closed between 10am and 8pm on Sundays. It's Sunday today and it's now 10.30am. I walk there in the hope that the attendants overdid the limoncello last night and have now forgotten what day it is, but of course they haven't. We Google buses to the village near the beach, but there are none, and Google says it'll take two hours to walk there, so that seems to be the end of that idea.

We head towards the tiny strip of sand on the waterfront in front of the apartment. We access our lodgings from the same level as the Piazza Duomo, but we've noticed that there are apartments on the waterfront level below us, and we're curious to find out how the residents get into them.

Anyone who knows Issy well knows that she constantly craves Japanese food. She could live on sashimi without any trouble at all, and drools at its every mention. One of the things she's found frustrating in Italy is the lack of variety in the cuisine; it's quite hard to get food that isn't Italian. Personally I can't see the problem with that, but she has a different view. We peer into the doorway directly below our apartment window, to see that it seems to lead into a restaurant. I hear Issy shriek. I panic and wonder what disaster has suddenly befallen her. It seems that this was a shriek of euphoria. She shows me a sign in very small letters which says that it specialises in Sicilian and Japanese cuisine. In our experience there are only a handful of Japanese restaurants in the whole of Italy, and it seems that for the past week we've been unknowingly living right on top of one of them. The Google machine says that the restaurant's six metres from our apartment. This is probably to the centre; I suspect we could probably fall through our bedroom floor and land in a plate of sushi. Issy's already drooling and I think I've got a fair idea where we'll be dining tonight. I think it's probably just as well we've only discovered this now on our last day here; if we'd discovered it earlier I think we might have been eating here every night.

The beach in front of our apartment is small, crowded, and shadeless, so we walk on. We head into Castello Maniace, which is the military area that was closed when we came past it a few days ago. We read that there's been a fort of some sort here since the eleventh century, and the current fort was built in the thirteenth century. It seems that it was significantly damaged in 1704 when someone got a bit careless with the gunpowder. The views from the fort back towards the rest of Ortigia are excellent.

We press on and continue our search for somewhere to swim and rest in the shade. One of the "solariums" looks enticing, but we're told that it's completely booked out today. The water ten metres below the promenade looks very inviting, but we can't get to it, which is a bit frustrating. The people swimming off the rocks below us, seem to have accessed them via a rusty and near vertical ladder, which you get onto by scaling the railing. We watch on nervously as a man carrying a spear gun climbs down. He seems to get to the bottom without shooting himself, but we decide that maybe this isn't for us.

Issy wants to rest up back at the apartment so I head off by myself to visit the Jewish Baths. These are accessed through the lobby of a hotel. Our guide leads us down some steps to a cave twenty metres or so below the surface which houses the baths. It seems likely that they've been here since the sixth century, but were only rediscovered in 1989 when the hotel was being renovated. There was apparently a large Jewish population in Siracusa until 1492 when they were expelled while Sicily was under Spanish rule. It seems likely that the baths were then deliberately sealed off and hidden in the hope that one day the exiled population might return. They were originally used for ritual purification. Our small tour group is made up of four Italians and me. I feel sorry for the guide. She has a spiel which she needs to recite. It takes her a long time to get through the Italian version, and she then needs to repeat it in English just for me. The Italians are starting to look a bit bored by the time she finishes.

I move on to the Hypogeum of Piazza Duomo which is an extensive series of underground tunnels accessed through an entrance off the Piazza. The tunnels seem to lead off in all directions. Siracusa was bombed heavily by the Allies and then by the Germans during World War II, and the tunnels were used as air raid shelters. I guess getting bombed by both sides is what happens when you decide to swap teams halfway through. The armistice between Italy and the Allies was signed in 1943 at Cassibile, which is just outside Siracusa. The tunnels are mostly under the Piazza, but there's also one under the front of the Cathedral. The exit is along the waterfront on the west side of the island, several hundred metres from the entrance.

The owner of the Sicilian/Japanese restaurant is Sicilian and his wife is Japanese, and it sounds strange to hear her speaking what sounds to us like very good Italian. We tell them that we're staying in the apartment directly above them, and it looks like our living room is right above the kitchen. I'm a bit surprised that Issy hasn't picked up the smell of raw fish wafting up through our window. The owner says that they've disturbed us with their loud talking during dinner so he takes twenty per cent off the bill. We hadn't noticed even any soft talking, so we give them a large tip. They tell us that we can get back to our apartment using a "secret staircase" at the back of the restaurant. We had heard dogs barking during dinner. The owner rolls a wine barrel out of the way, revealing the staircase. As he does this two large dogs escape and charge into the restaurant. We sense that now might be a good time to leave. We climb the staircase and magically emerge in the courtyard right outside our apartment.

This is our last night in Sicily and we're now very sad to be leaving.

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Photos

Our apartment window, Ortigia
Note the sign about the Japanese restaurant in the window below ours