Lazy start. Great breakfast - again. Late checkout at noon useful as nearby market was on my list so we wandered off there; it was everything the Vucciria in Palermo no longer is: a colourful daily morning street market, which sells a fantastic array of fruit, vegetables, fish and meat. There was a crowd of people buying stuff just like at the Farmers Markets at home.
At the end of the market is a must-see for food lovers: a delicatessen of rare quality, called I Sapori dei Gusti Smarriti ("the flavours of lost tastes"), which has a great variety of cheeses, hams and cured meats of the very best quality, many of which, especially those produced in Sicily, you will find nowhere else. There is also an excellent assortment of wines, condiments, sun-dried tomatoes and other Sicilian delicacies made by the shop’s owners in their "laboratory". We bought a cheese and spinach foccacia to share on the train to Rome tomorrow, some bananas and some almond cookies to take to share with Kathryn.
We then walked to the Piazza Minerva to the caffè where we had a drink the night we arrived but this time we had a very nice coffee.
We strolled back to our hotel to collect our bags and then walked to our last hotel in Siracusa which is closer to the station in readiness for an early departure tomorrow morning. It is a lovely hotel overlooking the thin strip of land that separates the old town of Ortigia with the mainland - we have lovely views of the water.
We had a late picnic lunch on the terrazzo of our hotel, watching the world go by (on the water below that is).
Afterwards, we walked to the Museo Archeologico Regionale Paolo Orsi. It was a long walk and certainly by the time we had seen all the exhibits, we were dead on our feet. It was excellent.
Certainly the museo houses one of Italy's top archaeological collections, and by far the best in Sicily. The most ancient finds date from the Palaeolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Ages. Another section is devoted to the Greek settlements and includes a vast collection of Greek vases which were found in the necropolis of Syracuse and at Megara Hyblaea. Another contained remains from Magna Graecia settlements across eastern Sicily, including decorated vases from Gela spanning the 6th and 5th centuries B.C. Also pottery, statues, sarcophagi, etc. from Sicily's Roman and Hellenistic eras of the 4th and 5th centuries A.D.
This guy Paolo Orsi (1859-1935) must have been a very busy archaeologist; the amount of stuff on display is awesome and it has been very well catalogued. It would seem that Syracuse is just one huge archaelogical dig!
Then a long plod back - in time for the last vestiges of the sun going down over the sea with a cuppa tea on the terrace. We did some reading and then out to dinner - a not overly inspiring meal at Trattoria Archimede.
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We strolled back to our hotel to collect our bags and then walked to our last hotel in Siracusa which is closer to the station in readiness for an early departure tomorrow morning. It is a lovely hotel overlooking the thin strip of land that separates the old town of Ortigia with the mainland - we have lovely views of the water.
Certainly the museo houses one of Italy's top archaeological collections, and by far the best in Sicily. The most ancient finds date from the Palaeolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Ages. Another section is devoted to the Greek settlements and includes a vast collection of Greek vases which were found in the necropolis of Syracuse and at Megara Hyblaea. Another contained remains from Magna Graecia settlements across eastern Sicily, including decorated vases from Gela spanning the 6th and 5th centuries B.C. Also pottery, statues, sarcophagi, etc. from Sicily's Roman and Hellenistic eras of the 4th and 5th centuries A.D.
This guy Paolo Orsi (1859-1935) must have been a very busy archaeologist; the amount of stuff on display is awesome and it has been very well catalogued. It would seem that Syracuse is just one huge archaelogical dig!
Then a long plod back - in time for the last vestiges of the sun going down over the sea with a cuppa tea on the terrace. We did some reading and then out to dinner - a not overly inspiring meal at Trattoria Archimede.
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