Page 351 - The Rough Guide of Sicily

open, it’s worth slipping inside for a closer look.

Arsenale and Edificio Termale
Via Arsenale • Closed to the public

Over on the eastern edge of Achradina, close by the crowded huddle of boats in the
Porto Piccolo, you’ll find a much less recognizable ruin, the Arsenale provisions

centre, where ships were refurbished, hoisted up from the port by devices that
clamped into the ground – the slots that engaged them are about the only thing to look
at here. Adjacent, visible below the apartment block built above it, is the Edificio
Termale, a Byzantine bathhouse claimed to be the very same one in which, in 668
AD, the Emperor Constans was assassinated, knocked on the head by a servant
wielding a soap dish. It lies under a modern block of flats, and only a few piles of

stones are visible.

Basilica di Santa Lucia

Piazza Santa Lucia • Basilica Mass daily 5pm, and Sun morning • Free • • Catacombs English and Italian guided
tours every 30min Mon–Sat 11am–1pm & 2.30–5.30pm • €8 • 0931 64 694, kairos-web.com

At the northern end of the huge Piazza Santa Lucia, the church of Santa Lucia, built in
1629, supposedly marks the spot where St Lucy, Siracusa’s patron saint, was martyred

in 304 AD. Within is a fine wooden ceiling, but you don’t need to enter to admire its
Norman tower or, from the piazza outside, Giovanni Vermexio’s octagonal chapel of
San Sepolcro, where the mortal remains of St Lucy were originally preserved before
being carried off to Constantinople by the Byzantine admiral Maniakes in 1038, and
later shipped to Venice as part of the spoils plundered by the Venetian “crusaders” in
1204.

If you like catacombs, be sure to take one of the guided tours of the labyrinthine
complex below the church, full of the tombs of those who wanted to be buried close to
the sight rendered holy by Santa Lucia’s death.

Santuario della Madonna delle Lacrime

Viale Teocrito and Via del Santuario • Daily 7am–1pm & 3–8pm
The gargantuan Santuario della Madonna delle Lacrime, fronting Viale Teocrito,

dominates the skyline on most approaches to Siracusa. It was completed in 1994 to
house a statue of the Madonna that allegedly wept for five days in 1953 (delle
Lacrime means “of the tears”), and the church was apparently designed to resemble a
giant teardrop (it actually resembles one of Tracy Island’s missing Thunderbirds). As
you can’t sink a spade into the ground in Siracusa without turning up a relic or two, it

came as no surprise during the building work to discover the extensive remains of
Greek and Roman houses and streets, which are fenced off but visible just to the