We arrive late afternoon a little worn after roughly 37 hours of travel. Sydney to DOHA, DOHA to Rome, and finally Rome to Syracusa. Mt Etna is visible, doing her smoky thing, as we fly from the mainland across the north eastern part of the island of Sicily. She rises, dotted with deep green vegetation and volcanic black, above the more arid surrounding plains and farmland. The island size, almost 26000 square kilometres, and hilly topography is evident from the air.

On land in Syracusa, we have only a simple taxi ride to get to the yacht and the family. Or so we think. There is nothing simple about this taxi ride, nor about tall, dark-skinned, Luca. The grey in his crinkly dark hair makes me think he’s in his fifties. “No worries Syracuse”, he says. “Yacht, old town, no worries”. “Fifty minutes, no English” he says, laughing. We seem to have exhausted his spoken repertoire, which by the way is larger than ours in Italian, and he moves into gesticulation. He signals the road is long and straight by and slots a disc into the sound system. The cab fills with Frank Sinatra’s “My Way”. Despite the length of travel and head spin we have, or maybe because of it, we join in on the chorus. Encouraged, he ramps the volume, way up. He points to the speedo…140km/hour. “Perfecto” he says. He must have missed the sign saying 80. Frank Sinatra croons on with “Strangers in the night” followed by Liza Minelli belting out “New York, New York”.  As we get closer to Syracusa, Stevie Wonder comes on to tell us “I just called …to say…I love you”.

The landscape zooms by, the music blares and we are singing away and even managing the odd harmony. As the chorus peaks he turns around and conducts and I’m not sure who is now driving the car. Cars speed all over the narrow roads.  When you’d expect them to stop, they don’t. When you expect them to go, they do but much faster than you’d hope. Giving way seems like something I’ve imagined from another life. “Tutto e possibile” Luca laughs.

We make it to the port on the front edge of Ortigia. Ortigia is the old town, dating back to the Greek Corinthians, and now with strong medieval, gothic and baroque flavours. It’s an island town, attached to the rest of Syracusa by three narrow bridges. Rather amazingly we pay nothing to moor here, right at the entrance of this incredible town. Well, we later discover we need to pay a 10 Euro fee per day for our rubbish to be collected (or not as the case often is) by two burly port staff who belligerently sit in their van until we pay up . It’s still a great deal.

The following morning, we are awake 5 and out on the promenade by 6.  A group of nine joggers are out enjoying this glorious morning and a cyclist wheels past yelling into her mobile phone mouthpiece. It’s a perfect time to explore. Locals are moving about, walking their dogs and hanging in doorways, chatting. We head off along the promenade towards Castello Maniace, a citadel and castle dating back to the 1200s, built by Emperor Frederick II.

We follow the foreshore walk, past a small beach with two sunbathers already out, then duck into the collection of narrow streets. Many of the multi storey houses were once ornate palaces, the home of the aristocracy. Today many of these are more modest… cracked limestone, rusted balconies. But the beauty is captivating still. Like a grand dame wearing a respectable age.

After a couple of hours rambling these streets we stop for a coffee and pastries, sitting at an outdoor table at a hole in the wall cafe.

Many of the local people on their way to work stand instead at the glass counter inside or out on the street.  Dressed in linen shirts, tailored pants and casual jackets they down their coffee and pastries chatting to the proprietor. Our pastries are soft flaky layers filled with either whipped ricotta or pistachio paste and are unbelievably divine. 7 Euros for four coffees and two pastries.

Continuing our ramble, we walk up a main street festooned with ancient oleanders; white, red, pink, past the ruins of the Temple of Apollo, and land in the morning fresh food market.  There are cheese vans, fruit and vegetable sellers, fishmongers and shell fish mongers with vats of live mussels, pippies, cockles that spurt little jets of sea water. You can shuck your own oysters and if you do, you get a free glass of white wine. Olives, teas, soaps, herbs and spices in colourful mounds. Just a fabulous way to stock up on groceries.

At the end of the market are a couple of eateries; Fratelli Burgio and Caseificio Borderi (makes cheese on site and gives demonstrations). We return later with all seven of us for lunch to Fratelli Borderi. These guys have been making their own meats, cheeses and conserves since 1978 and put all of these into the most incredible platters; meat, cheese, vegetarian or mixed. You can also choose from a range of salads like zucchini salad with buffalo mozzarella, caprese salad with tomatoes, basil and mozzarella or freshly made sandwiches. The food is as incredible as it looks. Fabulous. They also have a large shop selling their complete range of produce. Well worth a visit, indeed it could even be a “must see”.

To easily get to the Greek amphitheatre, we took the Jump on Jump off bus.  5 Euro for an all-day pass, enabling you to get on and off at any of about 15 spots around Ortigia and a little bit of Syracuse. Unfortunately, the amphitheatre is covered in wooden stairs/seats for the summer events. This protects but unfortunately hides the original structure. The view from it across a stand of pines to the port below is however spectacular.

Early evening, we take another walk around town; through Piazza Archimedes with its central fountain and Piazza Duomo, a beautiful piazza with the Syracuse Duomo and impressive, elegant buildings.

In the nearby streets I’m drawn to the Sicilian pottery. A stand out feature are the pairs of heads in many shops; one depicting a woman and the other a man with Moorish features. They are extravagant, with some growing plants out of their heads or turbans. There are a range of stories to explain the history of the heads, but the one I like moat tells of a local girl from Palermo falling in love with a Saracen merchant. This affair goes swimmingly until she learns he has a wife and children at home and in a fit of rage cuts off his head while he sleeps. To keep him with her, she uses his head as a vase to grow basil. It grows so well other town folk make their own clay head pots… and so the passion for the pair of heads grows.

We sit on deck after dinner and watch the parade of people go by. A dad cycles by, his curly haired toddler in the back seat. A bride and groom march past the yacht with their camera crew in tow. One can see why. The sun is an orange ball sinking behind the row of masts on the pier, a flock of about 80 swallows sweep around the roof tops of the old buildings, the limestone puts off an orange hue in the sun set.

The taxi ride and Frank Sinatra were just over twenty-four hours ago but it feels as though we have been here an age. It began with Luca and love songs, we learned about the doomed Sicilian lovers and families and a bride and groom paraded past the boat. There is a theme.