Neapolus Syracusa

Thursday 10th April 2025

This morning we went to Neapolis the architectural park in Syracusa. I have really been looking forward to this and wasn’t disappointed!! We got there at opening time to avoid the crowds and tour groups, well worth it we had the place to ourselves for some time. We started at the Roman amphitheatre which was impressively intact. Sculptures by Mito Raj were all over the park, huge bronze and stone sculptures which really added to the overall feel of the place. We couldn’t go into the arena which was a shame but we later also found a lot of the paths were closed off. It seems again that lack of money is stopping maintenance here.

Then over to the Greek theatre which is just a few hundred yards away. Sadly they are putting up the staging for their Greek play season so we couldn’t see as much as we would have liked but you can still see how impressive it is. Imagine how it would have been when it was just built, blinding white limestone, no trees or houses in the way just a view down the hill to the sparkling sea, it must have been magnificent! There was also a strange lone house left on the side. I presume it was all built over before its excavation.

Right next door to the Greek theatre is the massive quarry used for all these buildings. They made it as easy as possible to build these structures! It was as impressive as the theatres. They have planted a beautiful orange grove in it which also helps! All around the quarry you can see the marks in the stones from the handbooks that were used to get the rock out. It overall a really impressive place that I highly recommend

We bought a combined ticket with the archeological museum, which was a sad place. It was filled with thousands of bits of pottery, every single thing that had been dug up by the look of it. Somehow it was full of stuff but didn’t tell us anything (apart from the fact that they had really small elephants in Sicily!). Also as you can see it was falling apart! Never mind we got back in time to go to Fratelli Burgio for lunch, it closes at 3pm as it is in the market and is always packed. But today we got in and it was great!! We had a last evening in Ortigia, more lovely food and drinks! We have really enjoyed it here, off on the train tomorrow to Palermo!