Page 343 - The Rough Guide of Sicily

Tempio di Apollo

Largo XXV Luglio
Siracusa announces its long history immediately across the narrow ribbon of water

that severs the island from the mainland. The Tempio di Apollo is thought to have been
the first of the great Doric temples built in Sicily (seventh-century or early sixth-
century BC) and, though not much survives apart from a couple of columns and part of
the south wall of its cella, it’s a dignified old ruin. A scale model in Siracusa’s
archeological museum shows you what it looked like in its heyday – the arched
window in the wall dates from a Norman church that incorporated part of the temple

into its structure. To help you make sense of what remains here, imagine the entrance
with a double row of six columns, topped by a pediment at the eastern (far) end, and
seventeen columns along each side. Visiting in the eighteenth century, the French
writer Vivant Denon reported finding one of the columns embedded in the wall of a
bedroom in a house on the adjacent Via Resalibera, part of it hacked away by the
owner to make more room.

Ortigia market
Via de Benedictis • Ortigia market Mon–Sat from 7am until around 2pm • Farmers’ market Sun 8am–1pm

Ortigia’s weekday market spreads along Via de Benedictis, running north of the
temple of Apollo toward the sea. One of the best stalls is run by Claudio Romano,
who sells the wild herbs he collects near Pantalica, and fresh ricotta. At the far end is

a cluster of unofficial stalls where locals sell fish, sea urchins and whatever wild
vegetables are in season. On Sunday’s there is a farmers’ market in the Renaissance-
style courtyard of the nineteenth-century Antico Mercato, which backs onto Via de
Benedictis, but has its entrance on parallel Via Trento.

Piazza Archimede