The cathedral in Ortigia has an ornate baroque façade. Added in the 18th century, it conceals an ancient past. Turn the corner from the Piazza Duomo, walk along the side of the church, and you’ll see towering marble columns embedded in the walls. They are all that remains of the Temple of Athena, constructed by the Greek residents of the city in the 5th century B.C. on the site of a previous temple. Old stones you can touch, overlooking the busy to and fro of daily life. The crumbling ruins of the temple of Apollo, on the other hand, are securely fenced off from the public.
On the island’s western shoreline, the Fountain of Arethusa is a pond where fish and ducks paddle in shallow waters surrounding clumps of papyrus (one of only three locations in Europe where this plant grows). But there’s a legend attached. In the Arcadian age, the goddess Artemus, sister of Apollo, changed the nymph Arethusa into a stream of water to escape the unwanted attentions of the river god, Alpheus. Her stream flowed under the sea and emerged as a spring in Ortigia. But Alpheus, being a river god, flowed through the sea to entwine his waters with hers, uniting them for eternity. A romantic ending or a tragic one?
Our apartment at the Casa della Fate had its own history, as the lofty ceilings, massive beams and worn marble steps attested. The mediaeval ambience was diluted, however, by the need to carve a tiny bathroom from the corner of what was once a grand room. And by the random collection of granny’s left-over furniture and nick-nacks that adorned it. Still, it had a balcony with space to sit and gaze down the narrow street to the sea.
Ortigia is tiny. So exploring its past was easy. A three-minute walk took us to the piazza overlooking the Arethusa fountain. The cathedral was a short, if uphill, stroll away. And the impressive fort constructed for King Frederick II in the 12th century was just at the end of our street.
On the trek to the busy produce market or to the main supermarket, we walked through piazzas and streets lined with 14th and 15th century palaces, ornamented with Renaissance, Aragonese, Gothic, and Baroque facades. While at street level on the Corso Giacomo Matteotti, the up-market shops definitely catered to the well-heeled tourist.
Of course, we were interested in more than history. We were interested in eating. On an island where tourism is their focaccia and olive oil, we were spoiled for choice. A comprehensive series of notes from our host had included restaurant recommendations from previous guests although, as he explained at great length, he hadn’t sampled many of them because his daughter was coeliac – a grave disadvantage in the land of pizza and pasta. We mostly adopted the “wander around and see where we end up” approach. Perhaps as a result, none of the meals we had in Ortigia was particularly memorable.
A couple were downright unpleasant. At the much-vaunted Le Vin de l’Assassin bistro, my bruschetta was thick and pasty, my octopus was drowned in a rich red sauce and the panna cotta I ordered, hoping for a light dessert, had the texture of wet cement. At Cola Pasta, the house-made casarecce were so al dente as to be inedible. The chewing took so long that the meal was cold halfway through. The sauces (also house-made) were delicious though, especially the “palermitano”, which contained ground almonds.
We had been counselled to avoid the strip of restaurants on the Lungomare, a west-facing promenade along the seashore. The locals were scornful of the food served at these tourist traps. Despite this, there was no better place to sip a spritz or a Negroni at sunset. Which is what we did on several occasions. We were, after all, tourists. Our aperitivo always came with a dish of potato crisps. I’ve never eaten so many.
While we mostly confined ourselves to the island, on our final day we ventured further afield in Siracusa. The hop-on hop-off bus picked us up in Ortigia’s Piazza Garibaldi, our first destination being the Basilica of Saint Lucia al Sepolcro, which houses Caravaggio’s masterpiece, The Burial of Saint Lucy. We had falsely assumed this was one of the regular stops on the route but, after testing my Italian with the bus driver, judicious use of Google Maps, and a longish walk, we made it to the church. It was worth it, and the painting remains one of the highlights of our trip.
Picking up the bus again, we continued to the archeological park. It was lunchtime, so a cold drink and a snack was called for. Beer and hot dogs were among the limited offerings at the bar outside the park. Hardly classic Sicilian cuisine, but hot, thirsty tourists can’t always be choosers.
On a rise above the city, among the archeological park’s attractions are a 5th-century BC Greek Theatre, a 2nd-century Roman amphitheatre and, carved deeply into the limestone cliffs, a cave known as the Ear of Dionysus. The cave is named after a cruel tyrant who, in the 4th century BC, relied on its extraordinary acoustics to eavesdrop on the prisoners he kept there.
We could have reached the park much more economically by local bus or even, so the guide books say, with a 30-minute walk. But we did it the easy way. And after our explorations and a short wait in the car park, the hop-on hop-off turned up again to convey us safely back to Ortigia in plenty of time for our aperitivo.
Which was followed by a final dinner on – yes – the tourist strip along the Lungomare.