A day trip to Syracuse (travel blog part 4)

I'm going to try to keep this quick since I don't think there's all that much here that will be particularly interesting to all of you, but let me know if there's anything you want to hear more about! The day started, unsurprisingly, with another train, a Regionale from Catania to Syracuse operated by a Trenitalia Pop (their third generation of Alstom Coradia following the Minuetto and Jazz trains). Like most of the Pops in Sicily, this one is in the EuropeLoveSicily special livery, which looks pretty nice. 

Most of Trenitalia's trains (all of the ones I rode on this trip except for the Intercity) now have these cool displays showing where the train is, how fast it's going, what the weather is like, and such. They're pretty neat, and considering the track record of things like this in Italy, I'm particularly impressed that they actually work! These are all new since the last time I visited Italy, but they've been retrofitted to most older trains too. 

Alright, time for some sights of Syracuse. Right by the train station is this neat cylindrical church known as The Pantheon; sadly, it isn't open to the public (unlike most interesting churches in Italy). 

Syracuse is probably most well known as the home of Archimedes. The bridge onto the island (Ortigia) that holds the old part of the city has this statue of him. 

At the far end of the bridge is the Temple of Apollo. I love how so many places in Italy have ancient ruins just sticking out of the modern city like this. 

The cathedral is similarly built around the ruins of the Greek Temple of Athena, giving it an interesting look compared to the typical Italian cathedral. 

Somewhat more modern: The 11th-century Castello Maniace at the south tip of the island, built to defend against marine attacks (hence the cannon-hole pointing out at the sea). 

At some point while wandering the backstreets of Syracuse, I stumbled upon a little place called Pizzeria da Mario, which... yeah. It's especially funny to me since the character Mario was apparently named after a Seattle landlord! 

I spent a bit of time walking around the island's waterfront, before heading back to the mainland... 

... Where my next stop was the very cool modern Basilica Santuario Madonna delle Lacrime, which again sadly isn't open to the public (though it seemed like it might be sometimes). 

I always love visiting archeological sites, and the quarries and other artificial caves in Neapolis (within the inland part of Syracuse) are quite cool. They were in the process of setting up various giant sculptures around the area for some reason, and the one in the last picture startled me when I pulled out my camera to take that picture of it -- my eyes had not adjusted at all to the completely unlit interior from the bright sun outside (and this was back around a corner), and I had no idea it was here until the night mode on my new phone managed to make a surprisingly bright image out of the darkness! So that's the story of how I got startled by a statue.

The rest of the site features a hillside Greek theater and a typical oval Roman amphitheater, both of which were mostly closed off (they were in the middle of setting up some sort of temporary stage and seating within the Greek theater). 

The last stop was the local archeological museum, housed in a very cool mid-century building that's largely original inside and out, including some quite interesting display cases. Archeological museums tend to be about the only kind of museum I truly enjoy, and this is quite a nice example, though the almost fractal layout is a bit confusing! 

My train on the way back was a Hitachi Blues, a brand-new hybrid train (able to operate on diesel or on overhead power, though this trip was a fully-electrified route) that has a different livery from all of Trenitalia's other Regionale trains for no apparent reason, and also has a bizarre number of missing windows -- it took me a while to find a seat facing the correct direction with a decent window! All of these new Regionale trains have horribly uncomfortable seating too, which is a real disappointment since trains used to be the comfortable way to travel compared to planes. The Intercity and Frecce trains intended for longer distances are a lot more comfortable, but you can end up on some pretty long trips on the Regionale too, which these new trains are not good for.

I had originally hoped to combine both of my Sicily days into this one post, but this is already getting pretty long and it's getting pretty late here, so I guess I'm going to end this one here. Maybe tomorrow's post will be able to cover more than one day, finally.