South east Sicily to Noto

Parked at Pantalica overnight
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Monday, 1st December

Well, we have made it, one calendar month in our van and we’re still alive! Decided to leave the Etna area after 8 days, it had been a great stay apart from the shit storm. Headed inland after using the autostrada to get around Catania. There were quite a few archaeological sites to view in the hills. Tried to reach the site of Pantalica – a necropolis (city of the dead) in a massive gorge but after wending our way thru this tiny town perched atop a bunch of rock with streets (some one way thank God) we found ourselves at the “wrong” end (as per the book on Sicily!). The major road thru the centre of town was “closed” and so with the one way streets the width of our vehicle we had to try to get out of town without destroying either the overhanding balconies, the electric wires running between the houses or our van! God knows how, but we scraped and scrunched our way out of the town. So as we keep reminding ourselves, we had the time to make our way to the “southern” side of Pantalica so as dark approached (before 5) we made our way and found a massive car park, looked new, a few kms before the site. However, we discovered they had “surfaced” it with this chalky lime deposit which was very attractive all over the carpets in the driving cab! Anyway, night fell and not one sound of one human being could be heard. Towns lay to the south and north of us….the stars were amazing and the only things to scare you were the thousands of dead bodies that lay in the hewn out caves in the gorge below!

Baroque and rule!

Pantalica - limestone gorge housing vast necropoli
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Tuesday, 2nd December

Woke to chattering and realised that the car park was not completed and the workman had arrived to continue the preparation of the car park and facilities for the upcoming season! Well, they weren’t worried about us parking there, one thing about the Italians and the Sicilians come to that is that they cant drive, cant park and they don’t care a stuff where tourists are in the wrong place!

So set off for the southern end of Pantalica with the van (plus us) having to groan and wind our way down the sides of the gorge to view some of the 1,000 rock-cut tombs, dwellings and temples that lined the steep walls of the limestone gorges. Pantalica was the heart of an ancient kingdom called Hyubla which used Syracuse as its port. The Greeks conquered it in the 8th C BC and then after many Arab invasions in the Middle Ages the locals sought refuge it the inaccessible canyons. That’s putting it mildly, when we finally found the spot where we were supposed to access the various sites the track was simply “hanging” off the edge of the gorge with sheer drops below. This of course, really delighted Mike with his vertigo!

Pantalica - fascinating area
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All in all, the views were stupendous, unusual with spots reminding us of the Goreme Valley in Turkey and the gorge paths precarious like the climb to the top of Huanu Picchu in Machu Picchu in Peru.

From Pantalica we negotiated the tiny streets of Ferla and made our way to another archaeological site which took some finding as once again, signs were not in abundance! We were trying to find the excavations at Akrai, where an old Greek theatre and many tombs were built in 664 BC above the city of Palazzolo Acreide. After finally spotting signs that simply said “archeologico” we managed to find the site at the top of a hill overlooking the town.

Mike at Akrai
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The acropolis was founded by the Syracusans and once again destroyed by the Arabs. What was amazing was the thousands of catacomb like caves that housed an enormous number of bodies and all carved into the rocks. The Greek theatre was splendid but what was sad was that since the excavations of the early 1900’s little has been done since and it is obvious that there would be so much more to see if the Italian Govt or someone did some work there.

So, after a busy day we arrived at our destination a camp site almost on the beach near Avola south of Syracruse. A bit expensive, but a lovely place to be for the next week.

More tombs at Akrai - seem to be a lot of tombs in Sicily!
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Thursday, 4th December

Visited Avola, took the van – liked the city found a good parking spot. Checked out the ‘Lido’ and a number of other spots down the coast eg: Lido de Noto, a little fishing port called Calberneda which was cute. Bought a few things at the Lidl down the road, not very exciting.

Friday, 5th December

Caught the bus to Syracuse – had to wave it down on the main road, good job it stopped! Was a lovely warm day. The city was founded by the Corinthians and with the Baroque architecture there’s tons to see. Visited the Neopolis Arachaeological Zone first where we took 15 mins to find the new bighliterri which is conveniently in the opposite direction to the entrance to the park! The zone was established in 1955 allowing visitors to make an tour of the Greek past which featured the Greek Theatre, Altar of Hieron 2nd, Tomb of Archimedes and a fascinating area called Latomie which was a huge ‘hollow; being the old stone quarries. Millions of cubic metres of stone had been extracted and then the remaining caves had been used to house prisoners over the centuries. The ‘Orecchio (ear) di Dionysuis’ being the most impressive quarry where thanks to the acoustics of this cave the local tyrant Dionysuis could hear the whispters of his most dangerous prisoners! It was pretty eery! The Greek Theatre was the best example of ancient theatre architecture we’d ever seen. Designed in the 5th century BC by the Greeks it was enlarged later in the 3rd & 2nd. In April 1914 the tradition of performing Greek theatre was revived and now plays annually in May and June.

Akrai
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In the afternoon we walked around Ortygia which is technically an ‘island’ but linked to Syracuse by a small bridge. Ruins of the 6th century BC temple Apollo just “lie there” with a small fence around it, kind of creepy and its “just there”. It was a fascinating area with Baroque buildings, small streets, pretty piazzas and the Fonte Aretusa, which faces the Porto Grande and the waters of this spring still gush just as they did in Greek times!

It was an exhausting day!

Ortygia - the original Syracuse
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Sunday, 7th December

Still trying to recover from Friday! Took the van and visited Noto which has a very important and rich history. In 1693 a terrible earthquake virtually destroyed the 2nd most important city standing on a hillside, in Sicily. 20,000 of its 40,000 inhabitants died. Prominent architects from all over Italy helped design and rebuild the city and today’s Noto’s magnificent Baroque architecture is unique in Sicily. Substantial restoration work has been carried in recent years with the naming by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. Met a Sicilian born Aussie guy running a stall near the park…..queried why he sold many flags except the Aussie one and then he said he lived in Melbourne!

Noto - destroyed by earthquake in 1693 rebuilt as Baroque city
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Anyway wandered around looking at the beautiful buildings and watched some students making floral tributes to Mary Magdalena as its her “day” tomorrow. They were very impressive, they use wet garden soil to ‘build’ lines along a predetermined pattern on a big sheet of wood. Then they “add” various colours of petals to “fill in” the picture. Its very effective and naturally has to remain lying down! They do this in a BIG way in May to celebrate the arrival of Spring and lay them down on an elevated narrow street, could see the remains of last years “pattern” imprinted on the cobbled roadway. Visited the restored 400 seat theatre, all red velvet and gold, really lovely. Also visited the Civic Museum where a very enthusiastic young man showed us around and also the Palazzo Ducesio which had a magnificent ‘mirror room’ in the French Lous XV style with gold and stucco decorative elements and fine frescos.

"Petal" collage in Noto. Area of wet mud lines on a predetermined picture on board are filled with different coloured petals.
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Managed to find the brand new Iper Spar just opened on the edge of town, nothing else was open being Sunday but we guessed the inhabitants of the whole of south east Sicily had decided to visit it! By the time we left there were ‘queues” to get in with impatient people just ‘parking’ in all the wrong places, why should they change their habits for a new shopping centre? It was actually good to find a shopping centre just like a Westfield but only with about 6 shops with the Iper Store taking up most of the space! Anyway stocked up! Christmas seems to be hotting up in Italy!

Petal pictures are in abundance at Festival time filling the elevated cobbled streets of Noto
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Monday, 8th December

Last day in this region – just lazed around quite a nice warm day, went for a long walk along the beach climbing over the uneven cliff path with Mike taking the safer path thru fields of zucchini rather than fall over the edge! Weaved in an out of the coves and found ourselves on some land that lead back to the road….Italians not into public footpaths! Moving on tomorrow after a week here.