Local time: May 1, 2014
On May Day, a public holiday, we visited two beautiful villages and two world heritage sites. The weather was good!
Mount Etna is also clearly visible.
First, a beautiful village.
The first is Castiglione di Sicilia, an ordinary village near the foot of Mount Etna, Sicily’s highest peak.
The second beautiful village was Monterosso Almo, near the World Heritage Site of Ragusa. the village itself was not much, but the church and cathedral of the village were very beautiful.
This is the end of the day’s tour of the beautiful village.
After this we went to Ragusa, about 30 minutes south of Monterosso Almo.
It was a city with a history of 3,000 years, but it was destroyed by the great earthquake in 1693. After that, it was rebuilt in Baroque style.
This city is divided into two districts. The old town beauty is the Ibla district and the new town side is Superior. Because of the separation of the two districts and the dispersion of the attractions, we had to do a lot of sightseeing by car.
Fortunately, May 1st was a national holiday and it was quiet, so sightseeing by car was very easy.
And another world heritage city, Syracuse. It takes about 2 hours by car from Ragusa. We will stay here for one night on this day.
Syracuse was the capital of Greater Greece 3000 years ago and is also famous as the birthplace of Archimedes. The city has been under the rule of all dynastic peoples, including ancient Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs and Normans.
The Duomo symbolizes the fact that all kinds of people have been replaced. In the guidebook, it is written that “the temple of Athens is sleeping”. I didn’t understand what it meant at first, but actually, this Duomo is a church built by Christians on the ruins of the temple of Athens in the Greek era, so the structure of the pillars of the temple is used as it is.
I think of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, an Orthodox church turned mosque.
We stayed at a B&B in Syracuse that was highly rated on Booking.com. The front desk was decorated with these plaques.
Dinner at the restaurant recommended by the B&B.
By the way, I ordered Italian style “fish soup” for the first time. In France, the fish is strained and served, but in Italy, as you can see, there are many ingredients.
These were excellent. I don’t remember eating mussels this good very often.
After dinner, I take a shower and go to bed. I generally try to go to bed between 10:30pm and 11pm. I just fall asleep naturally. As a rule, staying up late is prohibited because it affects the next day’s driving.
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