Siracusa: Ortigia, 2

Continuing our walk around Syracuse's Ortigia island...

How can you go wrong?

Executive summary: river god, Alpheus, takes a liking to nymph, Arethusa,
and chases her; just as he is about to get her, she appeals to her patron goddess,
Diana, who transforms her into a beautiful seaside spring

The spring: it's rather special when myth and an actual place coincide; another
instance of this, for us, was the Chimaera, in Turkey; but this is not merely myth, 
it is a story from Ovid's Metamorphoses; Vicki had a course on it in college...

Contemporary rendition

Celebrating Ovid's revival of Greek poetic meter in the Metamorphoses

Mediterranean color

Another street scene

Sicily is heavily into recycling; here, a cleverly disguised row of bins

Fortress

San Sebastian, patron saint of archers

Huh?

Off an alley...cleaning and de-bearding mussels

Fixer-upper

At the market...irresistible ground pistachios

Delicious but unidentified berries the ladies in Noto had
fed us...like honey in a berry

Our encampment at the marina in Syracuse

Neighbor

The view

Return To Our All-Time Favorite Doric/Baroque Temple/Cathedral, 2018

Still on our walk around Ortigia. We visited Siricusa's cathedral in 2011, and were knocked out by this Baroque cathedral plopped down undisguisedly on a 5th century BC Doric temple. It is amazing, and we have seen very few things to compare. Maybe the Mezquita, in its way. Usually, triumphant religions/regimes destroy all traces of predecessors and competitors. Not this time. It's one of those things that warrants revisiting. And I hope to see it again.

Exterior, approaching the Piazza Minerva; the Doric columns
are plainly visible

Piazza Minerva

Facade of the cathedral

West entry; OK, these columns are not Doric; but on the
other side...

Nave: what was the cella of the Doric temple

On the south aisle, huge, fluted Doric columns

West end: the Christians simply turned things around, making
the head of the Greek temple now the end, the cella the nave,
adding an apse at the entry to the Greek temple; and bricking
the whole thing up...

South aisle

Font said to be part of the original temple

Back out on the piazza, heading for the next church and Caravaggio's
Deposition of St. Lucia

Parthian shot, which I couldn't resist; of all Italian sites, except possibly the
Sistine Chapel, this is the most fiercely patrolled: "NO FOTOS!" It is also the
origin of my theory of Caravaggio's butt-centric aesthetics

Siracusa: Ortigia, 1

We drove on from Noto to Sicily's grand old city, Syracuse, which the Greeks founded way back in 733 BC, colonists from Corinth. (So why didn't they do Corinthian capitals?!). We visited Siricusa in 2011 and loved it: the new and the old; and the very old. Even in Archimedes' time, it was really four cities bunched together, of which Ortigia, the island, was the principal and oldest. In 2011, we visited the enormous inland archaeological park with its assorted Greek and Roman architectural monuments. This time, we just wanted spend a day walking Ortigia, which has plenty of antiquity by itself, plus much modernity and some really good trendy shopping. The next day, we'd do Syracuse's Paulo Orsi Museum, another favorite, another story.

The bit of water that separates Ortigia from the rest of the island (Sicily)

Just stepping onto Ortigia...the remains of the Temple of Apollo; the usual 5th
or 6th century Doric

On the piazza right next to the ruins, the police are holding an open class for
the kiddies on traffic mores and manners, maybe even laws; I always find these
things impressive, hopeful...

Back to the ruins...it was a big, important temple, in a big and important city,
some would say bigger and more important than Athens itself

I hope to return to Sicily some day; maybe the driving will be different and
better because of these classes...hope springs eternal

A really gorgeous fountain, said to be Art Nuvo....

If nothing else, Noto sensitized us to the potential beauty of balconies

It's not a big island; maybe ten minutes' walk across

Tight squeeze

Street scene

Did I mention that Sicily is really big on puppetry? Here, a puppet maker's shop

Another street scene

Wedding alert...!

"How much should I tip the priest?

After the ceremony, a little promenade on the city's main square

The priest was in confession for several hours after the ceremony, we conjectured