Diana has written such a glowing report on Siracusa, I think it devolves to me to throw a bit of cold water on the report.  We’re living in Ortigia, a small island connected to Siracusa by bridges.  Ortigia looks more like a movie set than a real place.  The streets are kept immaculately clean, the buildings are ancient, and around every corner is a piazza with either a church (sometimes more) or small businesses and ristorantes.  Last evening, we finally celebrated our anniversary which got the shortchange in Roma when I was laid up with a cold.  The restaurant sits in the middle of the old Jewish quarter.  It qualifies as Four-Star at least.  The wine cellar is just that:  a room that sits beneath the entrance.  The ceiling of the room is made of glass blocks.  The restaurant boasts over 250 wines.  We sampled one from local Sicily on the recommendation of the owner.  The vintage was 2004.  This wine stacks up as one of the best we’ve had in Italy, ever.   Today we went up to the archaeological park where we went into and sat down in an ancient Greek theater.  Then we went to a Roman amphitheater there and wandered around there for awhile.  The place used to get flooded for mock naval battles.  We availed ourselves of the bus service which is fairly inexpensive and quite efficient.  Diana’s right about the weather also.  But … there’s always a but.  We find Siracusa itself, other than the ancient ruins, to not be as interesting as Ortigia.  Just doesn’t seem to have the character.  Ortigia offers several old buildings that are for sale.   Can you imagine the nightmare in restoring one of these old places?  Most are enormous and are being purchased and broken up into condos or apartments.  Imagine what it would be like living in a 500 year old building.  When we went to the catacombs, it was a sobering experience seeing a portion of the thousands of burial places (all now vacated, having been removed when Sicily was under Arabic influence).  The catacombs are beneath an ancient Catholic church.  The tour guide informed us that St. Paul actually preached there and there is a fresco of him that, due to its being underground and painted on limestone, has badly deteriorated.

Life moves slow. We try to get up in the a.m. and get to a site before it closes either until 4:30 or the next day.  Diana, as usual, looks at a map, wets her finger, sticks it in the air, takes a reading of the sun’s position, and off we go.  I share much of my sister Chickie’s directional challenges:  Today, at the archaeological park, we headed down a small pathway, looked at what was there, then left.  We came to a small crosspath and I took the path we hadn’t been on.  Diana didn’t bother to come.  “We were just there,” she said.  I went anyway.  “Ah.  You’re right,” I said.  Diana’s so patient with me and just sighs I think, knowing I’ll figure it out finally.  I tried to take us in a direction in town that I thought we had come.  Thank God Diana prevailed.

I love the sight seeing, but confess that, probably won’t be able to keep up this pace for more than three months.  Then (or around then or slightly later) we intend to find a place to set-down some temporary roots so we can return to our writing.

I have one-upsmanship on Diana, though.  She’s locked herself in the women’s room at two different sites.  Today, I had to go in, hurl myself against the door (with all the pasta, the extra bulk came in handy) to free her.  She’s not likely to report this, though.