Tourist attractions Augusta

Apart from the Acropolis in Athens, this ensemble is perhaps the most powerful and evocative site bearing witness to the Ancient Greeks. It has the largest Greek theatre in the world, the amazing “ear of Dionysus” , a Roman amphitheatre and the Gr..

Caravaggio christened this amazing cave in the Latomia del Paradiso quarry: as a result of its exceptional acoustics, the tyrant Dionysus could, it is said, hear everything his opponents whispered. A legend, of course: nevertheless this place, crea..

This 5C BC theatre, one of the largest monuments from antiquity, was carved into the rock using the natural slope of the Temenite hill. Inaugurated with Perseus by Aeschylus (think about it), it was built by Damocope, also known as Myrilla. Transfo..

The Acradina district has since Roman times been devoted to the dead. Carved from solid limestone rock in the 4C-5C and extending over a wide area, the catacombs were centred on the tomb of St Martian, one of the earliest martyrs. Quite complex in st..

The word Latomia describes the old stone quarries used for the construction of public buildings. And as nothing goes to waste, they made excellent prisons. The Paradise Latonia is the most attractive of these quarries. Now it contains a ravishin..

This archaeological museum is tucked away in the park of Villa Landolina. It contains Sicily’s most important collections of artefacts from prehistory to the establishment of Greek colonies at Syracuse. Visitors follow a chronological layout that per..

The oldest part of the city, the island of Ortigia is linked to the mainland by the Ponte Nuovo; the road continues as Corso Umberto I, one of Siracusa’s main thoroughfares. Here the sea is of course the main feature, from the waterfront that extends..

Dioniso the old surrounded the Epipoli plateau with ramparts. In total, there is 27 kilometres of ramparts! At Belvedere, on top of Eurialo hill stands one of the world's most impressive ancient fortresses. Three trenches take you into the keep in wh..

Built in the imperial era, it has, like the Greek theatre, profited from the configuration of the terrain, at least for one of the hemicycles which is carved directly into the rock. In the centre of the arena, the rectangular cavity, linked to the en..

The excavations have revealed circular plan huts from the 15C and 14C BC. Cisterns and a water canal are still visible on the site. Further on is a necropolis which has 450 tombs in small artificial caves.

Beyond the necropolis , follow the old decumanus which leads to the agora , where there are some remains from all the inhabited periods of the site on top of one another. There is a large Hellenistic house from the 4C BC, made up of some twenty r..

The ruins of the basilica stand open to the skies above the crypt of St Marcus and constitute one of the most fascinating places in Syracuse. Byzantine in style, it was destroyed by the Arabs, retaken by the Normans, it then lost its roof in an ear..

Saverio Landolina rediscovered papyrus in the 18C and began again the manufacture of paper at this plant. The museum covers the range of uses of papyrus from ancient Egyptian times and shows all the steps in the work of the scribes, from the manufact..

The wonder, which occurred in 1953, was certainly not this sanctuary, a gigantic cone of concrete, built by the architects Andrault, Parat and Morandi and where the pilgrims abound in close-knit ranks. It was actually a picture of the Madonna which s..

Hardly imaginable, the persecutors pulled out St Lucy's eyes in 303. Now this place has a completely peaceful air today. The church, built on the site of her martyrdom in Byzantine style, achieved its current appearance in the 15C and 16C. On the squ..

In front of the church there is a cobbled parvis. The church has an attractive facade in golden stone adorned with a balustrade enlivened with statues and a magnificent doorway surrounded by torso columns which are topped by garlands of fruit: the eu..

This is a small puppet theatre featuring the pupi of the maestro Ignazio Puglisi (1904-1986) in a collection arranged on various thematic lines: rooms devoted to monsters (devils, skeletons, giants), to knights, Saracens and to cartoni , silho..

This temple, slightly heightened in a dominant position, was built around the 6C BC and it is clear that this building would have been huge!

The area has been inhabited since the protohistoric period. The town centre in which the philosopher Gorgias was born was established in 729 BC by the Chaldicians of Naxos. There you will see some wall ruins and pyramid-shaped monumental tombs. The S..

Built in the 6C BC, dedicated to Apollo or to Artemis, this was transformed over the centuries into a Byzantine church, then into a mosque, then a church again under the Normans. It is the oldest Doric temple surrounded by columns (that is to say per..