Five Go Mad Everywhere.: Sicily

Needing a lunch stop between Taormina and Modica, we choose Syracuse, not realising that a few hours is just a taster of what was once one of the major powers of the Mediterranean world.
The 2700 year old city of Syracuse played a key role in ancient times, it rivaled Athens as the most important city of the Greek world, it was a centre of Greek, Byzantine and Judaic civilization.
Syracuse was the birthplace of Archimedes and home to Plato for several years.

We only managed a wander around the small island of island Ortygia, the older residential quarter.
In the centre of Ortygia was the yellow stone pedestrian square , the Piazza del Duomo. The cathedral there is built on the remains of the Temple of Athena, the original Doric columns are incorporated into the present Cathedrals main structure. Here we enjoyed Gelato while listening to a man playing his guitar.
Our further wanders took us to the church of Santa Lucia, the town's patron Saint and finally the remains of the 7th century temple of Apollo.