Tag: ortigia

Postcard from Siracusa, Sicily: ‘Mailed’ before summer hell ignited

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The photos on these postcards should be time-stamped before delivery to your mailbox – our stay in Sicily was in late spring. Our travel schedule was designed to avoid the potential of encountering the same type of sizzling summer the island endured during 2022 – a high of 120 degrees in Siracusa.

So far this year, the temperature’s only hit a high of 117 degrees, but horrible wildfires have added to the island’s summertime blues. It’s no wonder that cacti and succulents are popular.

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Postcard from Siracusa, Sicily: Celebrating the bounty of the sea

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Above: Spaghetti a scoglio at Cod da Saretta

It must be frustrating to a traveler who only wants meat to visit Sicily where seafood dominates. For us, that was heaven. We were surprised we didn’t frequently order some of the dishes we expected to devour almost daily. Too many other temptations popped up on menus.

The first was pizza. Every city anywhere we have been, we are always on the lookout for Neapolitan-style pizzas. We even eat pizza in Austin once a week.

But despite the fact that Sicily has great pizzas exactly the style we love, we only consumed about three in two months. One reason was that the best restaurants and pizzerias, perhaps an over-simplified generalization, only offer it at night; the ones featuring it at lunch time tend to be tourist-oriented and often not as good. We tend to eat a main meal at lunch, one so substantial that’s it for the day. No room for late-night pizzas.

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Postcard from Siracusa, Sicily: Protector of eyes and the quill

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Above: Santa Lucia holy card superimposed over silver milagros displayed in Cattedrale della Nativita di Maria Santissima

She stands guard on the windowsill by my desk as I write. As the patron of eyesight and authors, Saint Lucy (283-384) has long been a favorite of mine. Both near-sighted and far-sighted, I’ve worn glasses since the second grade. And certainly my writing needs all the help it can get.

Having lost sight in my right eye a year ago, it seemed serendipitous that one of the spots the Mister planned on staying, Siracusa, turned out to be her hometown. A church dedicated to the saint, Chiesa di Santa Lucia alla Badia, was a block away from our rental – a proximity presenting an opportunity to soak up some of Santa Lucia’s goodwill to protect the left.

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