TOURS R'NT US

     First thing this morning, Bob threw open the doors to our patios, and there it was: the sea, sparkling in sunshine all the way to the horizon. Hardly a person in sight. Lovely.

     Our destination for the day was the archeological park on the mainland of Syracuse, so we bought day passes to the open-air, hop-on-hop-off bus to take us there and back. We had it almost to ourselves all the way over.

     The park has three items of particular interest. The first is

the Latomia del Paradiso, a deep limestone cave carved out by 7000 POWs in 413 BCE by the despot Dionysus. About 7000 people in organized tours were headed there before us, but we elbowed our way through and managed to see the cave before they filled it up. Caravaggio, when he saw the cave, said it looked like “the ear of Dionysus,” partly because of its shape, and partly because

the acoustics were so good that the tyrant supposedly could hear what the prisoners were saying about him. Whatever. The point is that you can see the markings where stone was chiseled . . . all the way 75 feet up to the top. I think Bob's photo from inside the almost empty cave is spectacular

      The second item of interest is the Greek Amphitheater, which was hewn out of rock in the 5^th Century BCE. They say it could seat 16,000 spectators, but I'm beginning to think that “they” say that about all the amphitheaters we see! This one, however, has the unique distinction of having had the last tragedies of Aeschylus performed in it in the author's presence. Clearly, the theater is still being used. As the photo shows, workmen are carefully covering the hewn rock seats with wooden ones. Why? It's anyone's guess. Notice in the distance that some of the original seats are yet to be covered over. 

GREEK Amphitheater

     The third item of interest is the Roman amphitheater. Built around the time of Augustus, it is supposedly the third largest next to Rome and Verona. (Believe that, and I have a bridge . . .) Here gladiators supposedly faced each other with tridents and daggers, and slaves were whipped into the center to do battle to the death with wild beasts. (Must have been every bit as spectacular as Cats.) Note that the seats, which have not been covered over, have been carved out of rock.

ROMAN Amphitheater

     I have to say that we squeezed our self-guided tour of the park between one after another organized tour led by obnoxious guides holding little flags on sticks and shouting in German, English, Italian, or whatever, to their blank-looking flocks of motley tourists, or bored, uniformed school kids. The weather was cool but sunny, so we managed, but I can only imagine what it must be like in the summer.

     One other stop on this excursion was the archeological museum. It was one of the most confusing ones I've ever been in—a maze of ramps and walkways in a circular design, but the displays were well-lit, modern, and explained both in Italian and English. One whole section was devoted to coins, which we generally skip through as quickly as we usually do in galleries of armor or medieval religious paintings, but the attendant was so concerned that we not miss anything, that we just had to spend time there so she would not be disappointed. Other sections, which exhibited artifacts from

several millennia of various influences on Sicilian art (prehistoric, Greek, Arabic, Roman, etc.) were of greater interest, although the sheer size of the collection was overwhelming. Here's a photo of just one exhibit of large pots.

     Finally, we hopped on our bus for the crowded, half-hour ride back to our neighborhood on the island on Ortigia. Then we had a bite to eat from a local vendor before heading back to our room. There we flung open the doors to the terraces so that the gentle sea breeze could waft its way through the room to stimulate our blogging muse.