After a long day we arrived into Ragusa around 9:30 and we’re going to try horse but unfortunately the shop was closed. So we decided to head back to Le Marina house and Carmella and Salvatore cooked. They made omelette with fresh chicken eggs from their friend, tomato salad (also from Nonna’s friend), lemon salad from their garden and sun dried tomato salad then sun dried themselves. It was a simple but delicious dinner using produce from their garden or friends garden. The lemon salad was sweet and beautiful, the tomatoes also had a beautiful flavour and Steve was in heaven 😍
Salvatore is a popular man and had another ex-colleague he wanted to meet up with in Ortigia while we were there. We were pretty full but they wanted to get sweets so we thought we would share a refreshing lemon granita since it is Sicily’s speciality and it was a very hot day!
Today we went to Syracuse. The main attractions here are two theatres, one Greek and one Roman.
The Greek theatre is a semi-circle shape and was carved completely out of the stone (as opposed to built with blocks of stone). It would normally overlook the ocean but there are trees and buildings blocking most of the view now. It’s quite large and at the back of the theatre up the top there is a series of water features which get water from a man made reservoir about 40km away which flows via man made aqua ducts towards the theatre. This is because some of the shows here would include water displays with small boats and they would allow water to run into the base of the theatre and fill up around the stage. Pretty impressive for an age that didn’t have the machines and relied on humans carving stones!
The other theatre was more representative of the coliseum and is a full circle shape that would host battles between people and animals. This one is mostly ruined with just a path around the outside where as the previous one is maintained and still used today for modern shows and had excellent acoustics.
We also walked through a man made cave that was completely carved out of stone by slaves. There was a small opening at the top which was how the king at the time would hear what the slaves were saying about them.
Salvatore worked at the Siracusa fire department for a short stint in the past so he wanted to drop by and see his old colleagues. We met a few of his colleagues, saw the newest fire engine which is about 800,000 euro. They then offered us ice cream from their ice cream fridge! I had a magnum and Steve has a cherry chocolate ice cream from Italy.
After getting fuel from an ice cream stop at the fire station we went to Ortigia an island off Siracusa. We visited a church and walked around the town. I found a home made jewelry stall on the street so bought a ring as a token of Sicily. We also went and bought ourselves some almonds (Sicily is also known for their beautiful almonds) and more chocolate to eat from Modica. The chocolate from Modica is quite unique as it has no cream or milk so it has a very grainy texture. The water in Ortigia was beautiful and their were many cafes by the water as well as many nice boats, we were hoping Salvatore’s many friends was owners of one of those huge yachts.