Ancient Syracuse: The Greek Theater, the Quarries, the Island

Syracuse, in southeastern Sicily, was for three centuries the largest and richest Greek city in the western Mediterranean, a rival of Athens that defeated an Athenian fleet sent to conquer it. What remains of it is concentrated in two places, ten minutes apart: the archaeological park of Neapolis, on the mainland, and the island of Ortigia, which is the old city. A day covers both if you start early.

Why is Syracuse, Sicily famous?

For four things, in this order.

It was founded by Corinthians in 734 BC and became the dominant power of Greek Sicily. In 415 BC Athens sent the largest expedition in its history against it, and lost the fleet and the army; the prisoners were put to work, and died, in the stone quarries you can walk into today. It was the city of Archimedes, who was born here around 287 BC and was killed here in 212 BC when the Romans finally took the city. And it kept living on top of itself: the cathedral of Ortigia is a working Christian church built inside a Greek temple, with the columns still holding up the walls.

Syracuse and the rock-cut necropolis of Pantalica, forty kilometers inland, were inscribed together on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2005.

The Neapolis archaeological park

This is the ancient city's public quarter, and one ticket covers all of it.

The Greek theater is cut into the slope of the hill, its lower rows carved out of the living rock. What you see dates from the third century BC, and it is one of the largest the Greek world built. It is still in use: every spring the Istituto Nazionale del Dramma Antico stages Greek tragedy here, with performances running from roughly May into late June. The 2026 season included Antigone, Alcestis and The Persians. Tickets go on sale months ahead, and seeing Aeschylus performed in the theater he was performed in is the single best reason to plan a trip around a date.

The quarries, the latomie, are the strangest part. They are vast pits cut into the limestone, now full of lemon trees, oleander and magnolia, out of which the city was built. The Athenian prisoners of 413 BC were held in them. Inside the Latomia del Paradiso is the Ear of Dionysius, a cave 23 meters high and 65 meters deep with a shape that amplifies sound, which the painter Caravaggio is said to have named. The story that the tyrant Dionysius used it to listen to his prisoners is a story.

The Altar of Hiero II, nearly 200 meters long, is the base of the largest altar of the Greek world, built for public sacrifices on a scale that is hard to imagine until you pace it out. The Roman amphitheater nearby is what the later city added.

Practical. In 2026 the full ticket was 17 euros with the exhibition included, 10 euros reduced for visitors between 18 and 25. From mid-March to October the park opens at 8:30 and closes one to two hours before sunset; in winter the hours are shorter and are published month by month, so check them. There is very little shade: go in the first hours, and take water and a hat.

Ortigia, the island

The old city sits on an island joined to the mainland by two short bridges, and it is small enough to walk end to end in twenty minutes.

The cathedral is the reason to come. In the fifth century BC the Syracusans built a Doric temple to Athena, six columns across the front and fourteen along the sides. In the seventh century AD the Christians walled up the spaces between the columns and turned the temple into a church, and the baroque rebuilt the facade after the earthquake of 1693. Nine columns of the original right flank stand inside the church, leaning slightly, worn into waves by twenty-five centuries. Nothing else in Sicily shows the layers this plainly.

The Fountain of Arethusa, on the seafront, is a freshwater spring that rises a few meters from salt water, and papyrus grows in it. It is one of only two places in Europe where papyrus grows wild, the other being the Fiumefreddo river on the other side of the island.

The temple of Apollo, at the entrance to Ortigia, is the oldest Doric temple in Sicily, and what survives is a couple of columns and a platform at the edge of a busy square, which is the correct way to meet it.

The Caravaggio is not in Ortigia. His Burial of Saint Lucy, painted in the city in the winter of 1608 after his escape from a Maltese prison, has been back in the church of Santa Lucia extra moenia, in Piazza Santa Lucia on the mainland, since December 2020. It is a twenty minute walk from the bridges, it is free, and it is one of the great late paintings.

For the baroque walk through Ortigia's streets, and for Noto and Modica beyond it, our guide to Ortigia, Noto and Modica is the companion to this one: that article is about the eighteenth century, this one is about the fifth century BC.

Castello Eurialo, for those who want the whole story

Seven kilometers northwest of the city, at Belvedere, stands the best preserved Greek fortress in the Mediterranean world. Dionysius the Elder built it at the start of the fourth century BC as the key point of a wall that ran for 27 kilometers around the whole plateau above Syracuse. There are towers, ditches cut into the rock and underground passages, and on a weekday you may well have it to yourself. It needs a car or a taxi, and about an hour.

How long do you need in Syracuse?

One full day covers Neapolis in the morning and Ortigia in the afternoon and evening, which is what most visitors give it.

Two days lets you add Castello Eurialo, the Paolo Orsi archaeological museum, which is one of the best in Italy for the Greek period, and the Caravaggio, and it lets you be in Ortigia at the two hours that matter, early morning and sunset.

Syracuse or Taormina?

They do different jobs. Taormina is a small hill town with a theater and a view, expensive and busy at midday, wonderful in the evening. Syracuse is a real city of 120,000 people with an ancient core, cheaper, less polished, and far richer archaeologically. Most travelers stay in one and visit the other. Our guide to where to base yourself in eastern Sicily sets out the trade-offs.

How to get to Syracuse

From Catania, about an hour by car, or by bus, which is more frequent than the train and runs from the airport too. From Taormina, about an hour and three quarters by car. Our guide to getting around Sicily covers the options and where public transport works.

Drivers should note that Ortigia is a restricted traffic zone: leave the car in one of the parking areas near the bridges and walk in.

Seeing it without the logistics

Our Jasmine journey gives a full day to Syracuse and Ortigia from a base in Taormina, with the driving and the timing handled, and finishes it with a workshop in a craftsman's studio. Dates are on the page. If you would rather build a trip around the Greek sites of the island, that is exactly the kind of request Design your trip is for.