Greeks and Romans in One Go 1-13-16

Today was a banner day, we got to see both a Greek amphitheatre and a Roman coliseum within about 100 yards of each other and we had ricotta cheese in three different forms.  I don't believe one can do that anywhere else in the world but here in Syracuse. Our hotel serves breakfasts as part of the room and this morning our waiter had put out two rounds of ricotta one was in it's natural state and the other had been baked, we've never had baked ricotta before but it was quite creamy and rich with a bit of nutty overtone.
We are virtually at the southeastern tip of the city and the archeological park is in the northwestern end of the city, so we fortified ourselves with an indulgent breakfast for the journey over but it's only about 30-40 minute walk.  The city is not all that large.  We had a beautiful sunny day, warm enough that we only wore sweaters for outer covering.  Truly a Mediterranean climate.

The third century BC. Greek amphitheatre was the largest one in the ancient world and hosted several premiers of plays by the playwright Aeschylus.  In 1914, the city revived performances of original
 greek plays and every April since then there has been a festival in the amphitheatre.  Also in the park are several caves created from rock quarrying activity used to supply the various building projects during Greek and Roman times.  They were then used as prisons, a very unappealing prospect.  At  the eastern end of the park is the tomb of Archimedes, the ancient engineer that stated "with a large enough lever I could move the world".  

Part of the park is closed for the winter,due to low visitor numbers, but we were able to walk over to the coliseum and spend quite a few minutes walking around and drinking in the atmosphere. As we walked down one of the ramps on to the floor I was contemplating what it must have been like
for the gladiators who walked along there thinking "I wonder if I'll walk out today or not?"  It must have been pretty grim walking in there to thousands of shouting spectators hoping for blood.
After visiting the park we walked a few blocks to a little restaurant where we had a very good lasagna and a bottle of Nero d'Avola wine.  Deb followed up with a ricotta gelato (the third form) while I had a cannoli, both were quite delicious.

Following lunch we went across the street and visited the archeological museum.  It contains artifacts covering about 40 centuries of Sicilian history and has fantastic Greek and Roman objects way out of proportion to its geographic size.  I've never seen so many together in one place before.  The Louvre probably has more red and black Greek pottery overall but this little museum has every kind of artifact one could imagine, from prehistoric pygmy elephants

, through the Greek, Roman, and very early medieval periods.  There is another museum that addresses the Arabic occupation period, but that will have to be for another time.  It was nearly sundown when we finished up with the museum and I'd guess that we were the last visitors to leave because all the docents were
 sort of hanging around at the front door as we left, although nobody said anything or rushed us whatsoever.   We had another nice walk back in the twilight and had a quiet evening in the hotel.