Syracuse, Italy ...

 Another site seeing adventure under our belts.  This time we didn't have too many 'learning' experiences, so maybe we are getting the hang of things.  We did learn that they move museums around and don't always tell you (and trip adviser doesn't know).  Oh well, we missed one of the things we wanted to see most, but the rest made up for it.  We wanted to see where they make the papyrus paper.  Apparently this is the only place outside of Egypt that makes the paper, because the city was gifted some plants back in the ancient days and it grew really well here. If it would have been warmer we would have taken a boat out to where it grows too but yesterday was COLD.

Anyway, we went to Syracuse yesterday which is about an hour south of Catania.  Syracuse is actually a place that the Apostle Paul visited.  Look it up in Acts 28:12.  Kind of cool! It wasn't as pretty of a drive as when we drove through Sicily, but it still had some pretty views.  We got to see the harbor where the huge boats/barges come in and that was quite the site.  Those ships are HUGE.

When we got to Syracuse, there was the above church, that you could see from just about every aspect of the city.  It is a modern church built over some ancient ruins.  It is the Santuario Madonna delle Lacrime.  We didn't take the time to go in but it was a very unique building. 

 The next stop just down the road was the Zona Archeologica.  After we finally found the ticket office, a LONG ways from the entrance of the park we made it in to see the ancient ruins.  We also had our first experience of paying for the toilettes.  Very clean and worth the .50 euro.  We walked over and saw the Roman Theater (above).  It was huge.  It was fun to be able to walk on the path that people have walked on for thousands of years.  Then, we headed down to see the Greek Theater, not too far away.  It was even more grand, in my opinion.  This is actually still used during the summer months for concerts and plays and such.  We got to walk down to almost where the stage is, sit on the huge seats (which are not comfortable) and pretend like we were watching a show :).

Behind the Greek Theater was this beautiful little spring that was pouring out tons of water!  Around it was what appeared to be catacombs, or was the quarry to get the rocks out to make the theaters, either way, the kids enjoyed going in them and 'playing'.

In this same zone is a HUGE cave called the Ear of Dionysius. The acoustics were amazing.  The minute you walked to the entrance of the cave, you could hear the massive amounts of echos.  It was very cool. The kids thought it was super neat to hear themselves.

Now onto the island of Ortygia...