May 20, 2023

May 20, 2023

We have been having rainy windy weather the last several days in Sicily. I think maybe my lucky charm wife is losing her mojo. We are experiencing a Sirocco Wind. This is the bane of southern Europe. It is an Arabic word and means a wind that comes from the Sahara picking up moisture as it passes over the Mediterranean. It famously also brings red Sahara dust coating cars. Because of that it has the nickname of Blood Rain.

We went for a guided walk down the length of Ortigia Island. We passed the local market checking out especially the ultra-sweet local Pachino Cherry Tomatoes that we enjoyed a few days ago. They grow on a vine that resembles clumps of red grapes. Being on the Mediterranean, there is also a wide variety of seafood. Besides octopus and squid, we watch them expertly cut Tuna and Swordfish. I also tasted a fresh Fig. Unsurprisingly it tastes exactly like a Fig Newton from my youth. Looking at the open spice displays, I am pretty sure they are now contaminated with Sahara dust.

We soon pass the ruins of the Temple of Apollo. This is supposed to be the oldest Temple in Sicily.

We make a longer stop in Piazza Duomo where we learn that in Greek times, this was the site of the Agora, or marketplace. It also had two Temples, one dedicated to Artemis, and the other to Diana. The City Hall and Cathedral were built upon their foundations.

We go into the Cathedral to explore this long history. Like the Temple of Concordia in Agrigento, the Temple of Athena has been preserved because it has been in continuous use to the present. The Cathedral still has all the original columns from the Greek Temple on the periphery. Nobody bothered to cover these pagan symbols up. Astoundingly the Cella, or Inner Sanctum of the temple is also intact. All the Christian architects did was toss out the cult statue and cut arches into the walls to open it up.

When the Normans conquered Sicily, their architects raised the outer walls and added some Romanesque windows for light. When the Spanish Bourbons arrived, they added an altarpiece. After the earthquake of 1693, a new Late Baroque facade was added like in Noto. Amazingly this small Cathedral contains almost the entire record of Sicilian history.

Our walk continued south to the seashore where we saw the Arethusa Spring. This fountain has ties to the foundation myths of Syracuse and Corinth. It is surprising to have a freshwater spring only feet away from the salty sea. I also can’t believe I see Egyptian papyrus plants growing in it.

It is starting to rain, so we ditch our guide and pop into a restaurant for lunch. We have several appetizers, or Antipasti to share. Antipasti means literally, before the Pasta course. The Eggplant Parmigiana is especially good.

Right outside the hotel, I stop to take a photo of Archimedes, the most favorite son of Syracuse. Famous for having shouted 'Eureka' after discovering the Law of Bouyancy, Archimedes is easily the finest mathematician-scientist of the ancient world and arguably of all time. Pi is known as Archimedes Constant.

After resting a while we took a guided tour to the local Paolo Orsi Archeological Museum. It is housed in a somewhat dated honeycomb-looking building. It has a very large collection of Greek artifacts from the general area. We had to breeze quickly through the many wings. The vast size is an indicator of the depth of Greek civilization in Sicily. One of the highlights was seeing the 3000-year-old carved rock slabs that were used to seal the tombs we visited yesterday in the Necropolis of Pantalica.

Like Palermo, this museum has lots of examples that show ancient Greek temples and statues were not the plain white marble color we have come to expect. They were colorful, even if today we can only see traces.

Unlike Palermo, we learned that the lion-head temple roof projections we saw were not merely decorative, but downspouts, akin to the gargoyles of northern Gothic cathedrals. Alternatively some temples had trumpet-shaped downspouts that could be used on our own house in Tucson. And of course they were gaily painted too.

We have seen lots of Roman ruins and I am not surprised seeing Latin inscriptions. Having had four years of Latin in high school, I can somewhat make out the meaning. Here the writing is all Greek to me, literally.

We have an early dinner of Caprese salad and Pistachio Pesto Pasta followed by gelato on the walk home.