Syracusa
is on the southeastern point of Sicily. The Old Town is esentially a small,
walled island off the town proper.
Here's
the central piazza...
...
and here's Faith doing an encore of West Side Story.
When
they say Old Town, they're not kidding. The old is mixed with the new
in
this small area. This ancient temple ruins is right near an American bar
specializing in Bud on tap.
Syracusa somehow manages to maintain the aura of it's former power and
glory
although it's essentially a small sleepy fishing town.
After spending the day there, we were back at the
hostel in Catania. We decided to
vary our diet a bit for dinner and opted for WINE, cheese and crackers.
This
was the view from our hostel room. Some random, partitioned-off ruins
that was was now overun by cats. Quinessential Italy right here.
Next
we gathered up all our stuff and grabbed a train north. To a little place
called Tiormina. See that hulking grayness behind the clouds there? That's
Mount Etna, Europe's largest active volcano. It sort of looks like a mountain
range, since the base of it is so wide due to centuries of constant eruption.
This shot is just the center of it, as I couldn't fit the whole thing
in frame. Did I
mention there was a huge eruption about 48 hours after we took this shot?
Well, yeah it did. About 5 days later, when we were in Greece, we saw
black
smoke and soot that came all the way from here.
