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Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Friday, April 13. We had a breakfast at 7:00, before the hotel restaurant was really ready for us. At 8:00 the shuttle vans took us to the bus for our optional tour to Siracusa. Siracusa was founded by Greeks from Corinth in 734 B.C. In its prime, it was more prosperous than any city in Greece itself, but it declined once the Romans took over.
The bus stopped briefly in Naxos to pick up several people who had come over from a
tour of Malta. We arrived in Siracusa about 10:45 and went directly to its main attraction, the
Greek Theater (300 B.C.). This is the largest Greek theater in Sicily. It was enlarged in stages
until it could seat 16,000 people. Most of the seats are carved into the solid stone of the hillside
and so remain in excellent condition. The upper tiers of seats were made of quarried stone, and
most of those are gone now. The theater is still used.
Our group only spent about 15 minutes in the theater, listening to our local guide. He didn't even give us any time to walk around and enjoy the different views. He led us next to the Quarry of Paradise, next to the theater and the source of most of the stone for it. It's more like a park now, filled with trees and shrubs. An odd thing about it, though, is that narrow shafts of the original stone were left intact in many places, forming columns that once supported a covering over the quarry. Most of them have since fallen during earthquakes, but several remained. At the far end of the quarry was a large cave whose unusually shaped entrance earned it the name "Dionysius' Ear." It was once used as a prison. The roof of the cave must have been 50 feet high. It felt pleasantly cool inside compared to the warm and sunny weather outside.
The bus took us through the city and dropped us near the bridge leading to Ortigia, an
island of charming old streets and buildings. There we visited the 6th century cathedral that
incorporated the ancient Greek Temple of Athena (5th century B.C.). The space between the
outer row of Doric columns had been bricked in to form a solid wall, but the columns still
showed on both sides of the wall.
Leaving the Piazza Duomo, we walked to the restaurant where we had lunch. From there it was a fairly long walk to our bus. (The streets in Ortigia were too narrow for the bus.) We left Siracusa before 3:00 and were back at our hotel in Taormina at 5:00. It had turned cloudy and rainy. We rested and read until 6:30 when we walked down the Corso Umberto to see the Good Friday procession. It began at 7:00 and lasted nearly an hour, coming toward us on Corso Umberto and ending at the cathedral. Except for the priests, the procession was made up entirely of women and girls. About a dozen young girls in white carrying a crucifix were first, followed by at least 150 women in black carrying candles in square red holders. Some of the women carried on their shoulders flower-decked statues of Jesus' passion and of Mary.
The hotel had held dinner for us and we got back there to eat at 8:00. By then it had turned very cold and the steady rain was interspersed with lightning. Fresh snow fell on the mountains, including Etna, during the night. Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
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