Syracuse Discovery Guide
Getting around Syracuse the Smart Way
Syracuse was the most powerful Greek city in the western Mediterranean, and its cathedral is still the Temple of Athena — the fifth-century BC Doric columns are standing in the walls, load-bearing, with a baroque front bolted on after an earthquake. Nowhere else in Italy shows two and a half thousand years of continuous use that plainly.
The friction is that the modern city around it is unremarkable, and visitors who arrive by car into the mainland sprawl sometimes conclude they have made a mistake.
They have not; they are simply in the wrong part. Cross the bridge to Ortigia, the island where the Greeks landed, and stay there. It is about a kilometre long, it is where everything worth seeing is, and along with Sicily's Greek theatre up the hill it is the reason to come.
How to Experience Syracuse
Stay on Ortigia
The island is the visit. Walk the seafront from the bridges round to the castle, get lost in the lanes behind the cathedral, and be in Piazza Duomo in the evening when the stone goes gold.
The cathedral
Go inside and look at the walls: the Doric columns of the Temple of Athena are in them, and the arches are cut through the ancient cella.
Neapolis
The Greek theatre, the Roman amphitheatre, the vast altar of Hieron and the latomie quarries with the Ear of Dionysius. Mornings are cooler and there is very little shade.
The market
Ortigia's morning market, for tuna, swordfish, cheese, capers and a sandwich made in front of you.
On the water
A boat around the island and into the sea caves, or the Plemmirio reserve for swimming over limestone.
Inland
Pantalica's gorge and its thousands of rock-cut tombs, and the papyrus along the Ciane.
Where to Find Authentic Cultural and Historical Character
Syracuse is a working Sicilian provincial city with a very small, very beautiful historic island attached, and the two halves behave differently.
Ortigia and the rest
The island was half-abandoned and decaying into the 1980s before restoration brought it back, and it is now where the bars, the hotels and most of the visitors are. The mainland city is where people actually live — ordinary, unglamorous, and the reason the place does not feel like a museum.
Greekness as identity
The city takes its classical inheritance seriously and not solemnly. The drama festival is genuinely attended by locals, the cathedral is a parish church as well as a temple, and Archimedes is on the street signs.
Santa Lucia
The patron saint was born here and her December feast is the fixed point of the civic year, observed far more intensely than Christmas.
Food
South-eastern Sicilian cooking: tuna and swordfish, capers from the islands, almonds and citrus, and a granita habit taken as seriously as anywhere on the island.
Travel Profile
- Local Name(s) Siracusa
- Best Known For Ortigia, the island old town • The Greek theatre and its drama festival • A Doric temple still standing as the cathedral • Archimedes, Caravaggio and the Ear of Dionysius
- Travel Styles Cultural tourism • Archaeology • History • Architecture • Beach holidays
- Travel Environments Historic cities • Coast • Islands
- Getting Around Direct buses to Catania airport in about an hour; slow coastal rail to Catania and Messina; buses south to Noto and the Val di Noto; Ortigia is walkable end to end and largely closed to traffic, with a car needed for Pantalica and the inland gorges
Responsible Travel Tips
Ortigia is small and its restoration is recent. The island came back from real decay in the past forty years, and short-term letting is now pushing residents out of it — the same pressure Venice and Florence know. Staying in licensed accommodation and using the ordinary shops and the market, rather than only the places on the main squares, keeps some of that money local.
The archaeology is fragile and mostly unfenced. At Neapolis and especially at Pantalica, do not climb into the rock-cut tombs, move stones, or leave the paths.
The Plemmirio is a marine protected area; anchoring, fishing and collecting are regulated.
Water is genuinely scarce in a south-eastern Sicilian summer.
Papyrus along the Ciane is a rare surviving stand in Europe; boat trips should not be cutting it.
When to Visit Syracuse
April, May and October are the best months: warm and dry without the summer heat, and the island is at its most liveable.
May to early July is the classical drama season in the Greek theatre, which is the single best reason to time a visit.
July and August are hot, busy and expensive, though Ortigia catches the sea breeze and the evenings are long and social.
13 December is the feast of Santa Lucia, the city's patron, and the most important day in the local year.
November to March is mild, quiet and cheap, with plenty of sun and a sea that never gets properly cold. Some coastal businesses close.
Travel Cost Levels in Syracuse
What a visitor actually pays in Syracuse
Syracuse is markedly cheaper than Taormina and slightly dearer than Palermo. Prices on Ortigia rise in summer and during the theatre festival; the mainland city is cheaper year round but is not where you want to be staying.