Portrait of Syracuse
Piazza Duomo is the place to dunk. Surrounded by baroque showpiece masterpieces, Tina showed me how to dip my brioche in my granita.
Tina Santacroce studied ‘Behavioural Sciences’ at Melbourne’s Lafogue University before emigrating with her Sicilian husband Tino, 33 years ago.
She now runs the Caffe Minerva in the heart of Ortigia island on the east coast of Sicily. Granita is a carbo-loaded lemon, strawberry, almond and coffee foamy slush.
And signature Syracusan energy drink.
Tina recommends it. Because she knows it helps. It sets you up for a seafront lap (Foro Italiano) around the 2,700-year-old city on the Ionian Sea.
Syracuse was the most important city of Magna Graecia. It defeated the mighty Athens in 413. The very quotable Cicero thought it ‘the greatest Greek city and the most beautiful of them all’.
Tripadvisor.com contributors concur.
In the heart of the Citta Vecchia (old city), a table outside the Minerva, opposite the rightly four-star Antico Hotel Roma 1880 (which offers free international calls and the best squid spaghetti in town) and the fifth century Greek temple which became a cathedral in Byzantine times –chez Tina is the best place to soak up...