Things to See in Ortigia | 2 Monuments & Landmarks

All the monuments in Ortigia

The landmarks and masterpieces worth planning a day around.

Ortigia's sea walls and baroque skyline at golden hour, Syracuse

DistrictUNESCOOrtigiaFonte Aretusa, Temple of Apollo, Piazza Duomo's Baroque cathedral, UNESCO-listed ancient coreGreek settlers from Corinth founded Syracuse on this small island around 734 BC, drawn by the Fonte Aretusa, a freshwater spring that still bubbles up within yards of the sea exactly as the myth of the nymph Arethusa demanded. Twenty-seven centuries of building sit on top of each other in barely a kilometer of streets: the stubby Doric columns of the sixth-century BC Temple of Apollo, Sicily's oldest, rise beside the fish market, while the Baroque cathedral on Piazza Duomo hides fifth-century BC Athena temple columns inside its own walls. Ortigia and the rest of ancient Syracuse together form a UNESCO World Heritage Site listed in 2005. In the evening, when day-trippers leave for the mainland, the lungomare and the old Jewish quarter, the Giudecca, belong almost entirely to residents again.Plan the visit

Duomo di SiracusaUNESCOSyracuse CathedralDoric columns in the walls, temple of Athena, Baroque facade, Madonna of the Snow, Saint LucyThe Doric columns of Athena's temple, built in the fifth century BCE, still stand inside and along the walls of Syracuse Cathedral, doing structural work after some twenty-five centuries. When the temple was turned into a church in the seventh century, the spaces between the columns were walled up and side aisles cut through; Arab, Norman and Renaissance layers followed, and the earthquake of 1693 brought the front down. The swaggering Baroque facade, with its statues, was raised afterward and is the newest layer of Sicily's longest-running sanctuary. Inside, look for Antonello Gagini's Madonna of the Snow, the silver statue of Saint Lucy, patron of Syracuse, and Vanvitelli's tabernacle chapel.

The Ortigia guide

More within reach

Monuments a day trip away, elsewhere in Sicily.