The Lightness of Syracusa

Compared to Catania's volcanic dark stones in their buildings, Syracusa is all about lightness.

From where I sit across the bridge that adjoins the island of Ortigia, what I see looks Moorish.

But then there's ancient Greek, Romans, Classical and beautiful Baroque churches too.

In one is a painting by Carravaggio. The theme is 'death', with a dead female martyr at its centre.  I think of Dad and his great interest in Carravaggio, and obsession with Peter Robb's book about him called " M" I remember Dad talking about Caravaggiio painting bruised fruit - capturing the real, not just the idealised.

The Piazza outside the main Church had those divine proportions and feeling of space as well as lightness from the soft colours of the stone and pavement. With some beautiful busking happening it just made me feel totally serene.

It started to rain. Luckily I had Rosie's umbrella in my bag. A couple in front threw their hands in the air and danced in the rain. Che Bella!

I found my way to an Exhibition of the inventions of Leonardo and Archimedes. Archamides lived in Syracusa 3rd Century BC, when it was a prosperous part of the Corinthian Empire.

An Eastern Scholar had replicated Leonardos inventions (all designed on paper) demobstrating how it all works, for machinery, for flight, for buildings, for war. Some of them you could turn a handle to see how these simple but clever machines operated. There was a children's room, where children could build and design with blocks etc themselves.

The last room was for Archimedes inventions. He was a master of physics. Weight and balance and he developed a screw to extract water,  and had a theory about people and corpses in water and at what point they sink

I particularly love the narrow allyways, that meander along in mazes with doors into compounds and peoples lives right in close.

My back ached. I really had enough walking for one day. Giangi picked me up from the bus station. We looked up tours to Etna by Jeep online. I ate at the Trattoria along the road with wine, chicken and salad for 10euros. Then crashed.