3 Days in Ortigia & Syracuse – Everything We Did, Ate & Loved

Hey guys and welcome to Sicily, we'll be spending the next month here. Yeah, we rented the car and then we'll do a full circuit of Sicily. Sicily is the biggest island in the Mediterranean, it is such a huge melting pot of civilizations from Greeks first to Romans, Byzantines, Normans, Arabs and even Spaniards. Everyone ruled over Sicily at some point. We are starting off in Syracuse in Ortigia. Syracuse was at some point the wealthiest and most important city in ancient Greece. Now this happened while the guy behind us, the statue Archimedes was still alive and was helping the rulers of Syracuse defend it against the Roman siege. Okay, so for context we just want to set the terms, Syracuse is the name of the big town here, like the whole city and Ortigia is just a small island which is essentially the old town. Yeah and it's linked by a bridge basically. This part of Ortigia is actually quite touristy, it's one of the most touristy areas of the whole southeast of Sicily and there's so many, so so many souvenir shops. There's a whole market right now here filled with souvenirs and bags and stuff like that. For us being here in Ortigia is actually quite special. We came here once before in August 2019, it was late August. We had one and a half days of very good weather, it was really hot and then we had five and a half days of a flood basically. It was just full on rain and a bit cold as well in August in Sicily. So for us sort of Ortigia is the dream that never materialized. So we're very excited now to actually enjoy it and have some good weather and see all the things that we never really got to. But for now we are focused on two things today, that is discovering the history and discovering the food. Yes. I'm so hungry. Luckily right next to where we are now, maybe like three minutes away, we can find some of the best sandwiches in Italy, in Sicily, in the world. They are very well rated and everyone seems to be talking about them. Yeah they're quite viral. Okay so we're going now to Caseificio Borderi. Yeah they're closing up in like 20 minutes so we need to hurry up a bit. We just got out of Caseificio Borderi. We didn't spend more time right now on that street. That is the same street where they have the food market every day and we will have a vlog dedicated only to the food here in Siracusa. But for now we got a sandwich each which... It's an overkill. They were so big. Also very affordable. We paid 16 euros for two of their premium sandwiches, the most expensive ones. So they're cut in half so this is just a half. Yeah I think we're probably gonna have half each and then we'll taste it. Oh my god this is... even this half is humongous. So this one is the special or something. It has everything so if you don't shy away from anything then this is for you I guess. How stacked it is. This is good enough reason to come to Sicily just for this. It's so heavy it's like like three kilograms or something. And then we have this one. This is a speciale one which is... I think it has some artichokes and a lot of provolone. There is the cheese. You have prosciutto crudo I think. I think I'll have this one. The meat is so good. Oh this one is the one that they smoked. Oh okay. So it's very smoky. It's really good. This is a speciale. It's because they blow towards the prosciutto. It's really good. So much filling like it's falling everywhere. That's why we're very hungry. We haven't eaten since this morning so we're gonna devour these. So this will last you for two meals easily. Oh this is so good man. All right let me try yours. I think you'll like this one better. It's more of your style this one. Yeah I think this one you should get this one if you come here. It was on these very streets that Archimedes was running naked on. So Archimedes was the guy who discovered the principles of buoyancy and when he did he got so excited that the legend says that he was running naked on the streets of Ortigia yelling Eureka. But please explain to us what buoyancy means. I don't know like floating thingies. Yeah like something that's buoyant means that it floats. It was on in his bathtub that he discovered it. The food was so good. Delicious. If this whole trip is gonna be the same I'll be a very happy man. So back in 1693 this part of Sicily was almost completely shattered by a huge earthquake. Luckily because of the way Syracuse was initially built and the sort of ground that is built on Syracuse was never really damaged too badly. But so many others of the towns in the area were completely destroyed. Towns that we will see in the next few days in the next few vlogs. But it's interesting how close Syracuse is to all these places and actually it wasn't really damaged at all. These streets are so beautiful. I don't even remember these streets from the last time we came here. And it's a lot of shade so that you are protected from the sun in case there is like a heat wave or something. We arrived to Piazza Duomo. You can just see how busy this area is. We are right in front of the Cathedral of Syracuse. That very beautiful imposing building behind us. This was built over the old temple of Athena and it still has the original Doric columns from 2500 years ago. I think she might be pregnant. But it's a thing in Sicily since we came here. I saw a lot of beds for cats like tiny beds on the side of the road and stuff. So I think they yeah they take care of stray cats. That's nice. That's good. So this brand here behind us, Ortigia, they make really really cool perfumes and obviously you know room scents and stuff like that. Nothing exciting though. I don't like any of them. I feel like they insist upon themselves. Oh god. Whether you love them or not the packaging is incredible. Yeah. So beautiful. Yeah the design is on point. And and I love I found I think it's an ashtray. I love it. If I were to smoke I'd get this. Do you like it enough to start smoking for it? Probably. It's so beautiful. May I have my... It's expensive. May I have my morning coffee from this mug? We need a show of hands. Who here thinks 35 euros for a cup is expensive? Look at this. A perfume is 60. Yeah but a perfume you use that like for one year. This one you use it for like 10. When you go out on the street you don't smell nice because of the mug. I have good coffee. I have coffee breath. So I'm being accused that I was unreasonable. I would have used that you know like on a daily basis. Let's give her 10 minutes. We'll see how we are after that. As I was doing the research for Syracuse this next bar we're going to would always come up as the coolest bar on the island of Ortigia. Okay. We sat down at Biblios and we got an Aperol Spritz for me and a glass of white wine for Laura. Really good prices seven euros five euros. The beers however very pricey like eight nine euros for a beer. There's something about the very first Aperol Spritz once you get to Italy. You're at your place my place it doesn't matter. Remember the really nice coffee cup we saw earlier right? Yeah. I saw on TikTok this shop. They do I think pottery classes but they also sell really really beautiful mugs and like ceramic stuff. Let's go have a look there. Maybe we find something nice and if not we'll potentially get the other one. But if we get one do you want to get matching ones? You mean matching ones from this new shop we go to now? No from the other one. I think that would be a bit ludicrous wouldn't it? I want to drink coffee under the same theme. Please this is the most ridiculous thing you've ever said. The theme is luxury jungle. Luxury jungle but luxury and jungle have nothing to do with one another. We can make it work. This is quite possibly one of the most beautiful small old town streets in Italy that I've ever seen. It smells of jasmine. I didn't remember Ortigia being so beautiful. I think we were too depressed with the rain last time. We went into Tazzamore and turns out that the owner him and his wife they manually create these cups and bowls and like all these ceramic things. They're handmade even some of them are like finger made. Yes as opposed to the pottery wheel. Yeah and I chose one that's finger made. Honestly it's one of the most beautiful cups I've ever seen. Yeah it has lavender on it. Lavender painting. It's beautiful. It's really really unique. Every single item is unique. They don't make two the exact same. I like the fact that it's a local store. It's not a huge company. Yeah exactly. There's so many cats. They're all very pretty. Some of them are friendly. She's not interested. This is the seaside straight away from between the streets. Out comes this absolutely gorgeous beach situation. Wow the water is so clear. This is so pretty. I think the sunset is that way. We will go in a moment that way because that's where they have some bars on the promenade to see the sunset. Sunset is in about 15 minutes at 8 p.m. This spot here up on the walls really beautiful very peaceful. There was a girl doing yoga there. And the colors are so beautiful. They're pinkish. This restaurant bar whatever this is quite interesting. You have to enter through Palazzo Borgia which you can visit during the day. But in the inner courtyard you got the entrance right there to Caleido. That's the name of the bar. Now I know this is quite popular so I'm 50 50 on this one. One of the most perfect views we've ever had while having a drink I think. Yeah if you want to come here don't be like us and reserve a table because we got lucky and we got one of the last tables here. We got so lucky. I think we got one of the best tables. Yeah a prime view. It's amazing. The sunset is so vivid. The prices are a bit higher for drinks but the view is insane so I think it's worth it. The pours are kind of generous. But it's still a lot cheaper than a random place in London. Not a lot cheaper. It's cheaper than a random place in London. We are just having a drink. We got some olives and almonds as you know aperitivos go with free stuff. Yeah. But you can have dinner. There's people eating as well so this is an actual restaurant not just a bar. This is one strong Negroni and it's really big too. Also another cool option to catch sunset is this deck right in front of the bar technically and you can just buy a bottle of sparkling wine or something and you can sit there for cheaper and there's a lot of people there watching sunset now. We are starting this morning by exploring the Neapolis Archaeological Park which is one of the largest ones here in Sicily. This archaeological park at the edge of Syracuse is comprised of about four maybe five sort of objectives that you want to see and right now we are at the first one. Right behind us you have the Greek theater which was built in the 5th century before Christ and it used to fit about 16 000 people at its peak and right now it's actually being fit for shows. Yeah for shows. There's this sort of a theater season going on every year. It's a huge site and actually it's quite popular. Yeah there was a queue to get tickets for the show so yeah I think it's quite popular. It's one of the more expensive sites we've ever been to. It's 17 euros per person. It is a massive one though. I will say it's one of the biggest ones. A lot to explore here. So at the top of the theater there's quite a lot of caves. These caves serve different purposes along the centuries from worship spots to prisons even. And there's one actually with a really cool waterfall over there. One of the cool features that I like are these hanging plants. It's actually really beautiful up here. Yeah. And you do get also very cool views over the whole of Syracuse and you see the gulf. Not gonna lie but that set looks actually super complex. It does make one want to come here and see the show. And if I'm not wrong I think last time we were here because this was not set up you were actually able to walk on the stands. Yeah. I that's part of the normal experience. But it's still cool to see from up here. The ear of Dionysus. Actually Caravaggio gave it the name. That was in the 1600s when he visited this spot. But the actual legend of it dates way back in Dionysus's time which was in the fourth and fifth century before Christ. So he was the first tyrant of Syracuse. He seized power through a coup and just ruled over the town and the kingdom in the area. The legend says that he used to use this spot to imprison people. Okay. And he would listen to their whispers and their secrets because the acoustics are so good from the outside. Surely that's not true. He was very paranoid apparently. That's the whole legend of it. Yeah just listen to this. Yeah people are testing out the acoustics. Oh it's a choir now. For what it's worth we are here in mid-May and it's about lunchtime. So the sun is the strongest now and it's tolerable. But I would say if you're here in July or August there's not a lot of shade. Just be mindful which time of day you're coming here. Yeah or carry an umbrella or a hat or something. This is a lot of walking you need to do. Do you want to hear a fun fact? Do I have a choice? So this cave and generally this area here is where the Greeks used to extract all the ingredients they needed for Greek fire. Now Greek fire apparently was a precursor of the napalm. The wildfire from Game of Thrones if you want. They used to use that in naval battles and so on because it would even burn on water. It was a very very close guarded secret at a time what it was made of. And it was a bunch of plants from here and petroleum and all kinds of stuff. And I think to this day there is not a full on knowledge about what actually contained. But they used to extract most of the things from here. And yeah apparently they were really good in battles because of that. Yeah. So there we go. Was that a fun fact? Kind of fun. I don't know if fun is the word. It's a bit interesting. A stretch but it was interesting. It's a bit interesting. Yes. But you didn't have fun. No. Let's go have some fun. This is the Roman amphitheater. This is a lot newer. It's about 800 years newer than the previous theater. It's practically brand new. Like third fourth century built. So over here you used to have gladiatorial fights. You know entertainment for the masses. So peaceful here. And this whole site is just so big. Yeah. It's honestly it's a great place for a stroll. I feel like it keeps us active doing these kind of things. You just have to pay 17 euro. Yeah you can be active worth of 17 euro. It's like a class. We are now right next to the final attraction here. This is the altar of Hieron II I think. It was a king of Greece and they built this absolutely humongous altar here. Essentially the purpose was just to use for mass animal sacrifices for public celebrations and so on. And apparently they used to sacrifice as many as 500 oxen here in one go. And the legend says that because of it the blood would just flow rivers in between these stands here. Imagine thousands of people cheering. You can only imagine the gore that used to happen here. It's apparently the largest altar in the world I think. Of the ancient times that is. Okay we are now leaving the Neapolis Archaeological Park. It's been somewhere around one and a half to two hours since we got here. And we were some of the quickest people to browse through. Most people I saw they had audio guides as well. So you can get that and I think for 17 euros you probably should do that. We're on our way back to the car now. We'll leave it at home and then go back to exploring Ortigia. And grab some food. I'm really hungry right now. We are arriving back into Ortigia now. It'll be our first proper sit-down meal here in Siracusa. Also I tripped and I twisted my ankle. Yeah. I now have a cankle. Yeah. At least I have an excuse for it now. There you go. Still have the lining. We sat down at Nostos Bistro. We found the table outside and it's the perfect temperature. It's so nice and so quiet on these streets. And I got a glass of red wine. Probably I got a beer. Is it local? Traditional Sicilian birra messina with sea salt. The glass looks really nice. And we decided to get some protein for once. I got a tuna steak and I got some polpette. Yeah some Sicilian meatballs. And hopefully we don't get run over by Vespas or those little tour tuk-tuks. There's not too many of them. One that's huge. Okay there's one now. With the amount of food I had today if I have a sip I'll probably be drunk straight away. I think prior to our last few Italian trips I was not aware of just how good Italian beer can be. Yeah especially the red one. Yeah like starting with the one we had in Bari. The amber. Kind of stuck with us. Ever since then we've had so many really good beers around Puglia. I didn't used to like beer at all but the red one is so good. These are straight up the best meatballs I've ever had. We just finished our meal. It was absolutely delicious and I overheard a couple. I don't think you heard this. So it was a couple going past us and she said never trust a skinny chef. I thought it was an interesting take. That's it. That would be all. Do you want to read behind you? There's a t-shirt. Read the message on it. Is this a thing here? Well I'm sure the person on the street probably read this. I would assume. Okay. I think you're disappointed now. I actually thought that was an interesting story but um yeah it's kind of I don't know underwhelming now. We've arrived right by the seaside here at Fonte di Aretuza. This is a freshwater spring literally what five feet away from the sea and the legend has it that Aretuza which was a nymph asked the goddess Artemis for shelter from the river god of Greece Alpheus because he was basically stalking her. He was in love with her and she just didn't want to and he kind of insisted and stalking in love. So Aretuza asked Artemis for help and Artemis from Greece transported Aretuza under the water all the way here and transformed her into a freshwater spring. Saying that it is a very beautiful spot. Yeah there's so many geese and ducks and so many small baby ducks. And it's one of the very few I think one of two places in Europe, both of them actually in Sicily, where you can find papyrus plants growing naturally. This is it actually we've never seen it live ever and it's really beautiful. I love the font but not of the plant. For us our next stop will be the big castle the fortress of Syracuse. Okay we got to Castello Maniace which is the fortress on the island of Ortigia the one that was built in the 13th century to defend Ortigia against well enemies really and friends. Do you think these columns here are into bondage? Very few people actually in here in the museum part of the castle. You can probably spend here maybe half an hour maybe 45 minutes walking around. Very pretty especially up here on the defense walls. For this evening we have a boat trip booked. We're supposed to be taken by a boat and toured a bit around the gulf here and shown what Ortigia looks like from a boat. It's in 90 minutes from now and it's just getting quite cloudy right now. Yeah I think it's gonna start to rain or something. It's raining after all somebody was right all along. If you're constantly negative you're gonna get one right at some point. Before we actually find out if the boat thing is happening or not depending on if the rain stops we are going to a local sweet shop basically and we're gonna try some sweets. That's always bound to lift one's morale. I have a private dining experience it's just the two of us in the whole shop. Yeah everyone left. And we got a coffee and a whole bunch of local sweets. These two are the same. Okay. They are almonds and pistachio cookies. This is the classic one and that is the same one but that is salted. Oh. That's the salted one. It's sweet. Is it? Mm-hmm. Very similar. Very similar right? So chewy. This is so delicious. Pistachio is so good. This is I think just almonds. This is the traditional Syracusan one. It doesn't have any pistachio or anything. It has a hint of orange. Okay. Or lemon. Lemon zest. It's really good. It's so gooey. I know. It's like cookie dough almost. It's really good. It's so good. I think I prefer this one. The lemon. That is marzipan inside and they have different fruit. They got the cherries and cactus fruit and everything. It just looks completely different but it's just the exact same. I like marzipan. This is the best marzipan I've ever had. It is sweet but it's really good. It's so almondy. Okay now the last one. This is called a casatina and apparently it has some sort of ricotta cream inside. It doesn't have a specific aroma. It's just sweet. But the ricotta filling is really really good and it has candied fruit as well. We are right beside where we normally take the boat to go out for our trip but because of the rain we were given the choice doing it regardless in the rain or coming tomorrow instead we were able to choose the time. So we're actually going to do it in the morning. We'll be here at 11. And it's supposed to be sunny tomorrow. So there we go. We have some plans for tomorrow to explore some areas outside of Syracuse but we'll do that after the boat trip. Good morning guys. We are off on the boat. It's a beautiful sunny day. I'm really excited to have a perspective of this island from the boat. It's supposedly going to be about an hour maybe an hour and a half. So normally you can fit about 25 people on these boats but since covid they've only done about 12 to 13. And I think today the way he said it it's probably going to be about four to six people. Hopefully. Actually I'm excited about the boat but if I'm honest I'm a lot more excited about the beach afterwards. Yeah some beach time. I miss some beach time. We are back on land and I still feel like I'm rocking left and right. Sadly we couldn't actually vlog on the boat because the guy was playing power ballads from the 80s. Really good vibes though. Can't complain. But we just couldn't film that. However we did film quite a lot because it was great fun. Yeah and I feel like an hour is the perfect amount to actually see a lot of stuff. We went into a few caves as well. Very pretty. The water was so so blue. It was very relaxing. I didn't feel nervous at all. You could also have the option of swimming which we didn't choose to do because we didn't know. We didn't know. Yeah initially yeah. We didn't know but some of the guys actually jumped in the water. Quick tip if you go on the boat sit right near the captain because that way you don't get splashed. Yeah at the back of the boat. One other thing this is really well organized. I booked this through Get Your Guide a while back and it cost us 35 pounds together. So it's actually quite affordable. I really enjoyed it. Yeah you learn fun facts as well about the city. We are planning to go to the beach. Yes. But before we go to the beach we gotta get some food. Yes. I'm really hungry. Being out at sea took it out on me. Yeah we were there for a whole hour. 20 minutes drive later we arrived at Fontana Bianche. This is one of the most beautiful beaches close to Siracusa. It's one of the most famous beaches in the area too. We got a sunbed each and an umbrella. This cost 25 euros together because we are on the first line of defense against the water. But this is an absolutely beautiful beach. The only tiny downside is that there's quite a lot of algae slash algae. But the water is turquoise blue crystal clear. So beautiful. We're half asleep. We're ready to go back into town. The beach day ended up being super super nice. It was so windy at some point. We swallowed a lot of sand even. But now it's very very calm and it's actually very very pleasant. And if you were to guess which one of us fell with the sun lounger you would probably guess that that was me and that would be wrong. Yeah I fell. It wasn't that dramatic but yeah. Well luckily no one got injured so we're good. Puglia went into the water. I actually went all the way twice. How was it? The water is colder than it was in Puglia in October. It is May so yeah. Yeah but it's doable. I mean it's not. Doable sounds lovely. However saying that there were people who spent hours in the water. But the sand is so nice so fine. I missed sitting on the beach. I think it's been like almost a year. We are back on the island of Ortigia. We're going to get an aperitivo but before that I actually want to show you something. We found this really cool secret beautiful spot in Ortigia. I found it online. I want to show it to you. It's really pretty. I call to the mountains and across the bay That would be all. It's just meant to be artsy. The sun is setting right now but we are ignoring that for the moment. We are in the inner courtyard of the Palazzo Bonanno here in Ortigia because this is the setting of probably one of the coolest wine bars. I don't even know what this is. It's such a beautiful inner courtyard. Yeah and it's very vibrant as well. There's a lot of people. The place is called Verga and we just ordered a glass of white wine actually from Etna. It's the first time we're trying the Etna wine. So Etna is this huge volcano in Sicily and because of the terrain there being volcanic their wines are completely different to most of the other wines in the area. So it's the first time we try that wine and I'm having a spritz but instead of Aperol we're using something else that is made here in Sicily and supposedly taste of rosemary. We do have dinner booked. We may or may not skip it. We'll see how that goes depending how hungry we are because over here we're just getting some olives and some taralli. I really want before we leave Syracuse I really want to have the pasta alla Syracusana and I can have that over there in that restaurant today. Is pasta alla Norma as well from Syracuse? No it's from Catania. Okay okay then I'm safe. We're gonna get to Catania later. The one thing I really like about Syracuse, about Ortigia, is that you have all these historical monuments and the archaeological park and so on but you do also have access to really cool beaches outside of the town. You have a couple urban ones here with you know a bit more rocky and not to mention the fact that the streets are very clean. You have really good food and drinks everywhere and the prices are definitely not too high. And to your point I feel like Syracuse is clean but it is cleaner in the central bit. Oh yes. On the outskirts it's not that clean but I mean it's like every other city I guess. Okay so this is our dessert. It's apparently the owner's invention. Something with a lot of lemon and a bit of pistachio. It's like a mousse slash sorbet of lemon with a bit of pistachio on the side. It's good. You can tell it's really high quality ingredients. Good. It's very lemony. That was a really delicious traditional dinner. My traditional pasta was incredible given how simple the ingredients were. Yeah. And Laura's swordfish. Honestly we've had swordfish all over Italy and this was one of the tastiest ones and most simple ones. Yeah yeah very good and the tomatoes in Sicily are so good. It's like I know tomatoes are fruit but in Sicily tomatoes are actually fruit. They're so sweet. Saying that this is the end of our first vlog here in Sicily. Hope you guys enjoyed our vlog here in Syracuse. Hope you enjoyed discovering Ortigia with us. Don't forget to like this video, subscribe to our channel and we'll definitely see you in the next one.