Siracusa

The city that was greater than Athens

Founded by Corinthians in 734 BC, Siracusa became the most powerful city in the Greek world: under the tyrant Dionysius, in the fourth century BC, it was wealthier and more populous than Athens, and Cicero called it the most beautiful Greek city anywhere. Archimedes taught here and died here in 212 BC during the Roman siege; Plato came three times, hoping to turn a tyrant into a philosopher, and failed three times.

What survives of that greatness sits in two places that look at each other from a distance. The Neapolis Archaeological Park, on the mainland, holds the Greek theatre carved into the rock — fifteen thousand seats, still used for the classical season in spring — the Ear of Dionysius, an artificial cave with legendary acoustics, the Altar of Hieron and the remains of the Roman amphitheatre. And then there is Ortigia, the island where the city was born and where it has never stopped living.

Ortigia, and the rest

You cross a bridge a few metres wide and everything changes. Ortigia is one kilometre by five hundred metres of lanes that open suddenly onto white squares. Piazza Duomo is the finest: the cathedral is a fifth-century BC Greek temple to Athena, its Doric columns still visible embedded in the walls — not a ruin beside a church, but a temple that became a church and has not stopped working for sixteen hundred years. At the tip of the island the Castello Maniace faces the open sea; on the other side, the Fonte Aretusa is a freshwater spring a few steps from the sea, with papyrus growing in it, tied to the myth of the nymph who fled here from Arcadia.

The Temple of Apollo, at the island's entrance, is the oldest Doric temple in Sicily. The Ortigia market, held in the morning on Via Trento, is one of the places where Sicily makes the most sense: stalls of fish, cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, and a sandwich shop with a queue outside. The mainland, which locals simply call Siracusa, is the modern city — less beautiful, but it holds the archaeological park and the Paolo Orsi museum, one of the most important archaeological museums in Italy.

What makes Siracusa different

That it is two cities in one, five minutes apart on foot, and that they resemble each other not at all. The archaeological park is a morning visit, with the sun still low and before the heat makes the cavea unbearable; Ortigia is where you sleep, eat and walk in the evening, when the stone gives its heat back and the squares fill up.

And then the sea. On Ortigia you swim off the rocks in the middle of town, which almost never happens in a historic city; half an hour south the Vendicari reserve begins, with its salt pans, flamingos and beaches behind the dunes, and a little further on Marzamemi, a fishing village with its square on the water. Inland, half an hour away, lies Noto and the baroque of the Val di Noto. Those arriving by air come through Catania Airport, just under an hour away by motorway.

Practical notes

Ortigia is largely a restricted-traffic zone and the lanes are narrow: cars are left in the car parks at the island's entrance or on the mainland, and from there you walk — the whole island crosses in a quarter of an hour. Anyone arriving by transfer is dropped at the bridge or at the car park nearest their accommodation, because vehicles go no further. The railway station is on the mainland, about twenty minutes' walk from the bridge.

The climate is among the hottest and driest in Italy: 11–16 °C in January, 17–24 °C in spring, 26–32 °C in July and August, with autumns that stay mild into November. The sea is swimmable from late May to October. Spring is the ideal season: the Greek theatre hosts the classical season between May and June, and the island is not yet in the thick of summer. Restaurants keep Italian hours; on Ortigia people dine late and stay out into the night.