Skip to content
Sicilia 2026Seven days on the Ionian coast
Day5Day 5 · Fri 21 Aug

Siracusa & Ortigia

The city that once rivalled Athens, and the island at the end of it

  • Teatro Greco
  • Orecchio di Dionisio
  • Piazza Duomo
  • A swim off the sea walls
The Greek theatre of Syracuse, its semicircular tiers cut directly into the hillside
The Teatro Greco, carved into the rock in the 5th century BCAntony-22 · CC BY-SA 4.0

Cicero called Syracuse the greatest and most beautiful of all Greek cities, and it had a quarter of a million people when Rome was still provincial. The archaeological park first, early, because it has no shade whatsoever — then the rest of the day and the whole evening on Ortigia, the small island of the old town, where a Greek temple is built into the cathedral wall and you can swim off the sea walls at six.

What it looks like

The route

Loading map…

8 stops, by car

Open in Google Maps

The day, hour by hour

  1. 07:45

    Drive to Siracusa

    Aci Trezza → Siracusa, A18 south

    Down past Catania and on south. The early start is worth it — the Neapolis park is a limestone quarry with no trees in it and it is brutal after eleven in summer.

    Drive1 h 10
  2. 09:00

    Parco Archeologico della Neapolis

    Via del Teatro Greco

    The Greek theatre is carved directly into the hillside — 5th century BC, 15,000 seats, and Aeschylus premiered here. Also in the park: the Roman amphitheatre, the enormous Ara di Ierone altar, and the latomie, the quarries that supplied the city and held seven thousand Athenian prisoners after the failed siege of 413 BC.

    Sight2 h 30€17
    Map

    Inside the quarry is the Orecchio di Dionisio, a 23-metre ear-shaped cave with absurd acoustics — and, being a cave, the only genuinely cool place in the park. Caravaggio named it.

  3. 11:45

    Onto Ortigia and into the market

    Mercato di Ortigia

    Two short bridges and the temperature of the city changes — narrow shaded lanes with the sea at the end of every one. The market is compact and excellent: capers from Salina, tuna, almonds, and Caseificio Borderi, where a man builds sandwiches the size of a forearm while narrating what he is doing.

    Market1 h
    Map

    The market packs up by mid-afternoon, so it has to be now. Borderi’s queue is long and moves slowly; the sandwich is the size of lunch for two.

  4. 12:45

    Lunch on the island

    Ortigia

    Ortigia does fish very well and knows it. Pasta with pistachio and prawns, or a crudo of the red prawns from Mazara del Vallo, which are sweet enough to eat raw with nothing but oil and lemon.

    Food1 h 30
  5. 14:30

    Piazza del Duomo & the cathedral

    Piazza Duomo, Ortigia

    The best square in Sicily, a long white limestone oval that glares in the sun — so this is a stop for the inside of the building rather than the outside of it. The Duomo is a 5th-century-BC temple of Athena that was never demolished: the Doric columns are embedded in the side walls, and it is dim and about eight degrees cooler in there.

    Sight1 h€2
    Map

    Step inside and look along the left aisle: those fluted columns are the original temple, standing where they were put two and a half thousand years ago.

  6. 15:45

    The Giudecca and the Tempio di Apollo

    Ortigia

    The old Jewish quarter is the shadiest part of the island — lanes barely two metres wide, washing overhead, and the miqwe, a ritual bath cut into the rock five metres down, rediscovered under a hotel in the 1980s. The Tempio di Apollo, the oldest Doric temple in Sicily, sits in a sunken enclosure by the bridge.

    Walk1 hFree
    Map
  7. 16:45

    A swim off the sea walls

    Forte Vigliena, east side of Ortigia

    Ortigia’s swimming is off concrete and rock platforms built into the ramparts, with ladders straight down into deep, absurdly clear water and the old town at your back. Late afternoon is when the whole city comes down to do it.

    Sea1 h 30Free
    Map

    Bring a towel in the bag from the start of the day. There is a small lido here with loungers if you would rather not sit on stone.

  8. 18:30

    Castello Maniace & the ramparts

    Southern tip of Ortigia

    Frederick II’s castle at the very point of the island. Even without going in, the walk out along the Lungomare d’Ortigia to the gate is the best light of the day, with the sea on both sides of you.

    View1 h€6
    Map
  9. 19:45

    Fonte Aretusa at dusk

    Largo Aretusa

    A freshwater spring that surfaces metres from the sea, full of papyrus — one of only two places in Europe where it grows wild. The nymph Arethusa fled here from the river god Alpheus, who followed her under the Ionian. The bars along the terrace above it are the aperitivo spot on the island.

    Sight45 minFree
    Map
  10. 20:30

    Dinner on the island

    Ortigia

    The last proper night out of the trip — tomorrow is a beach day and Sunday is the flight. Ortigia at ten at night, with the lanes cool at last and every table outside, is about as good as this island gets.

    Food1 h 45
  11. 22:15

    Back up the coast

    Siracusa → Aci Trezza

    An hour and ten up the A18, and no alarm tomorrow.

    Drive1 h 10
    Map