Syracuse

Syracuse is to get lost in the lanes of Ortigia only to find oneself in the middle of the elegance of a rundown, ill smelling but somehow appealing architecture.
The recent, not yet complete, works of restoration have brought to light the mythical aura of the skilful use of white stone, its rooms and spaces which show the style of late baroque dating from the period after the earthquake.
Syracuse is the most popular destination in the south-east of Sicily, the moral and once upon a time even political capital of the Val Noto.

On its peninsular the town of the nymph Arethusa offers the warm embrace of a varied population: students and old fishermen, shop owners and prostitutes.
On the mainland, the new and semi-new part of the town, you find the classical Syracuse with its Greek theatre, the Roman amphitheatre, the altar of Hieron II, the ear of Dionysus and the catacombs of San Giovanni.
May and June are the months of tragedy presented in the natural setting of the Greek theatre.

Every year they attract many visitors.
In the other months quietness again seizes hold of the town – a tranquillity gained by the thousand-year-old age of the population, the long sleep, where awaking up has been postponed to sine die.
And nobody is able to interrupt this sleep, not even the fascinated visitors who, on scorching hot days during the summer, walk through the lanes of Ortigia under the indifferent eyes of its inhabitants, the enormous masks made from stucco of the Palazzo Impellizzeri and the cheeky grin of a thousand-year-old Gorgon figure.