Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
To reach the park, take bus 1, 3 or 12 from Ortygia's Piazza Pancali and get off at the
corner of Corso Gelone and Viale Teocrito. Alternatively, the walk from Ortygia will take
about 30 minutes. If driving, you can park along Viale Augusto (tickets available at the
nearby souvenir kiosks).
Museo Archeologico Paolo Orsi
MUSEUM
( 0931 46 40 22; Viale Teocrito; adult/reduced €8/4; 9am-6pm Tue-Sat, 9am-1pm Sun)
In the grounds of
Villa Landolina, about 500m east of the archaeological park, this wheelchair-accessible
museum contains one of Sicily's largest, best organised and most interesting archaeologic-
al collections. Allow plenty of time to get through the museum's four distinct sectors; seri-
ous archaeology buffs may even want to consider splitting their visit into two days.
Basilica di Santa Lucia
al Sepolcro
(
www.basilicasantalucia.com
; Piazza Santa Lucia)
The northern end of one of the city's biggest
Lucia al Sepolcro. The 17th-century church is built on the spot where the city's patron
saint, Lucia, an aristocratic girl who devoted herself to saintliness after being blessed by
St Agatha, was martyred in 304.
It's an impressive sight with its columned portico, Norman tower and 18th-century oc-
tagonal chapel known as the Sepolcro. But the main drawcard is Caravaggio's
Seppelli-
mento di Santa Lucia
(The Burial of Saint Lucy, 1609), which after a lengthy restoration
at Palazzo Bellomo has been returned to its rightful place over the basilica's main altar.
Beneath the church is an impressive network of catacombs, used by the early Christians
for burials.
According to Roman law, Christians were not allowed to bury their dead within the city
limits (which during the Roman occupation did not extend beyond Ortygia), so the early
Christians used the outlying district of Tyche for burials, accessing underground aque-
ducts unused since Greek times. New tunnels were carved out, and the result was a
labyrinthine network of burial chambers.
CHURCH, CATACOMBS
Basilica di San
Giovanni
CHURCH, CATACOMBS
