Playing El Cid

February 15-16, 2017

Wednesday was our last day at the Villa Politi, so we trekked out in the morning to see the remaining big attraction in that part of town, the Archeological Park.

The park is a few blocks west of the Paolo Orsi Museum. I was no longer under the influence of a reality-distorting drug, so the walk was pleasant. It was a little cloudy and there was chill in the air.

What’s more, I could walk without danger of wandering into traffic. I could even look for lizards in the wall.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned the lizards before. They seem to be everywhere.

Next to the hotel there is a park named for Pope John Paul II. It’s the one with the low wall of caves that we found on our first walk in Syracuse.

There is a retaining wall by the sidewalk. It’s a drywall, in which irregular stones are laid without mortar.

Lizards love the place. When the sun is out, they sit on the edges of crevices to warm themselves. When you get close, they dart back into the rocks. 

The movement is so quick that, if you’re not sure what it is, it can be startling. Especially for Joanna, who is extremely frightened by snakes. So I have to warn her that we will encounter lizards when the sun is bright. 

I sat on the hotel porch and saw one on the banister. It crawled along the concrete and then dodged into the hedge, probably to wait for lunch to fly by.

We even saw a tiny dead lizard that had somehow crept into one of the museum cases.

It was too cold and dim for them Wednesday morning, so we didn’t see any lizards.

The Archeological Park is the site of later development of Syracuse called the Neapolis, New City, which is also the origin of the name Naples. Most of the structures in the park were partly carved out of the living rock and then finished with conventional construction.

The seating in the Greek theater is carved right out of the hillside. I don’t know what type of stone it is. It is very white, with pockmarks maybe from weathering or from its geoological formation.

Many banks of seats are still usable, although some parts have eroded. Here and there holes run right through the stone.

We sat in an upper tier to take in the view. It is a dizzying pespective to look down the seeming endless tiers of steps. Good thing, I guess, that we didn’t try to come here the day before, when balance was a challenge.

From the Greek theater, the way leads to the Quarries of Paradise. I have no idea what they may have looked like when they were being worked. Maybe littered with the corpses of careless stonecutters. Who knows?

They are beautiful today. The steep carved walls surround a variety of trees and flowering plants. There is a bamboo grove, too, but I doubt that it’s indigenous.

The site also has a high-ceilinged cave called the Ear of Dionysius. People at Villa Politi had told us that the cave in their quarry was the Ear. Wider opinion, however, identifies the Ear as the cave in the Neapolis.

It is said that during Syracuse’s war with Athens, Dionysius the Tyrant kept his prisoners of war in the quarry. He is said to have built the cave as a listening post to eavesdrop on the captives.

There are other caves, but they are roped off. You can walk into the Ear. When we did, we heard an echoing murmur. That was in addition to the occasional visitor humming or shouting to test the echo.

I wondered if the background noise was a recording put in for effect. It was only after we got all the way in and were coming out that it became apparent. It was the cooing of pigeons roosting on the walls.

Another feature of the park is a large structure called the Altar of Hieron. Hieron was the tyrant who had the altar built. It’s believed to be a huge sacrificial altar, indeed the largest known, designed for killing 198 bulls at a shot or something like that.

This too is partly cut out of the rock and then built up. Or at least, it was. One of the medieval rulers of the city, Charles V, took most of it away to build a fort.

The Roman amphitheater, which is also in the park, was built much the same way. More of that is left, including some of the original tunnels. 

The 12th or 13th century church of St. Nicholas of Cordari, fenced off and apparently abandoned now, stands at the entrance to the park. It was built over a Roman bath, and the ancient arches hold up part of the church foundation. Come to think of it, that may be why the church is no longer used.

After a few hours of walking, we decided it was time to head back to the hotel for a rest. 

After almost four weeks here, we have sort of fallen in line with the rest of the country. We spend the afternoon taking a long breather at the hotel when everybody else is taking a nap.

Dinner at the hotel started with a pasta roulade. This was a sheet of pasta, much like a layer of lasagna, rolled around a filling of spinach and ham. It came with a white vegetable puree thickened with melted cheese.

The second course was slices of roast pork with mushrooms and potatoes.

The wine was the same blend of Syrah and Nero d’Avola that we had tried the other night.

There is a conference in session at the hotel. The theme is “invest with your head and your heart.” It’s in a separate building next to the main hotel, so we had no idea how many people were attending it.

The answer is “lots.” And they all showed up for a buffet dinner in the big dining room next door.

It was quick. The whole thing may have lasted a little more than half an hour.

After everyone had gone, the waiter brought us some complimentary sweets for dessert, apparently from the buffet.

Thursday morning we checked out on time and took a cab to our new digs in Ortygia.

We are at a small hotel called Alla Giudecca. It’s the same name as a street a block to the west. This is the ancient Jewish quarter of the city.

About 20 meters under us, we’re told, is the old ritual bath, the mikveh. 

The building has very high ceilings, many of which are vaulted in the common rooms downstairs. Breakfast is like having a meal on the set of “El Cid.” I keep expecting Charlton Heston’s teeth to shine out of a corner.

We are in a small apartment with a living room, kitchenette, and two bedrooms.  

We left the bags at the hotel while they finished getting our room ready. We started strolling through these fascinating alleys and winding streets. Many of them are closed to cars, although motorbikes seem to be allowed everywhere.

When we came to the Temple of Apollo, we saw a street market on the far side. 

Vendors were selling vegetables and fish, and everything looked so good. The fish were all brand new and lying on ice.

There were things to eat there that I couldn’t recognize.

Then we passed a man outside a restaurant who was clearly enjoying a plate of pasta with seafood. We weren’t ready for dinner, but made a note of the place, La Isoletta.

We stopped for a snack and a beer at Bar Apollo. It’s a bar named for a church. I was giving pagans equal time.

We made our way to the Piazza Duomo to visit the cathedral, which may have its roots in the 6th century. That is, a sign said that the apse of the Lady Chapel has Byzantine and Norman elements dating from the 6th to the 11th century

The vestibule and the sanctuary, the area around the main altar, are baroque, like the front of the building. 

We got an update on St. Lucy’s relics. Her body was returned to Syracuse in 2014. It and a separate reliquary holding her left arm are held in the altar of the St. Lucy chapel in the cathedral.

They are brought out once a year and processed through the old city. A video running in a room full of St. Lucy art and artefacts shows the procession, which draws an immense crowd.

There is an event like that, though on a much smaller scale, in Montclair. The old parish of Our Lady of Mount Carmel used to process an image of St. Sebastian every August. Maybe it still does, even though it has been merged with the Immaculate Conception parish.

We followed the procession through the neighborhood several years ago.

Maybe 20 guys carried the statue on long poles over their shoulders. There was a small band for the occasion. Every once in a while, the procession stopped and a family brought out a large candle, which was tied onto the float with the saint’s effigy.

The figure was already covered with donations of money pinned to its cloak.

In one of the Duomo’s rooms devoted to the history of St. Lucy, there are cases containing jewelry and gold watches that have been donated to her.

We also learned what those metal hearts and masks are. They are votive offerings to St. Lucy. The mask represents her eyes, which were gouged out but miraculously replaced.

We saw the bones on display of two other martyrs, one named Benedict and the other Victoria. They are in lighted glass cases lined with red velvet and surmounted by gold crowns, indicating martyrdom.

St. Lucy is often depicted with a golden crown. In one of her symbolic representations, she holds a dish with two eyes in it. She may have a wound in her neck, sometimes with a sword still in it. At other times she holds a martyr’s palm frond.

We went back to La Isoletta in the evening. Joanna had pasta with shellfish: clams and mussels in the shell, shrimp, and squid. I had spaghetti with a fish ragu. 

There was a little tomato in my sauce, but not much. Unlike a ragu made with red meat, it didn’t have that consistency of thick gravy. Instead, it had small bits of fish in a little broth.

The seafood pastas here are amazing, and these were no exceptions. 

They were both very different from each other, so we couldn’t mix them, but we sampled each other’s dishes. 

The wine of the night was a three-year-old Sicilian Nero d’Avola bottled under the name Kammut. 

I can’t imagine where the name comes from. It could be local dialect, a reference to the old Arab days of Sicily, or something completely different. 

Anyhow, it’s bottled by a company called Bagliesi.

It is sharper than most Sicilian Neros that I’ve had, but if anything, that edge gives it a little more strength to stand up to the strong flavors of the food.

Enough for now.

Be well, all, and don’t forget to love your fish.

Harry