Siracusan's coasts, that I heard, so much talked about, of the natural beauty, of the color blue of the seas and of the fine sands of the beaches. From my window I can see that far sea, I needed that sea, seen for such a short moment, to seem as a memory or a dream - they have told me that during the nice clear days of September- that, that far sea, was that, of Augusta, a place where I have not ever been. My trip to the Siracusan's coasts.

From Agnone beach the road goes high above the Saracena coast, where I stop and admire the blue and big sea. At the first crossroad I make a left, Brucoli, is sea, at the end of the road that goes down, it's a sea outstretched between me and Etna. It's a village of fishermen, two parallel streets, houses, alike and low. And down further, a large square with a castel, small, but with a proud appearance with it's small round tower, on a solid ground of corrugated rock, in the entrance of a port canal, not so wide, but a natural gift, where the boats can find a mooring without any problems. An unusual view, in Sicily, in a place that seems made purposely for a vacation, for who looks for a sea and a place for meditation.

From the Tauro mountain the view is wide and big: The Ionio on the left and at the right the sparkling water of Augusta's ports with an outline of ships and of masses. A Castel, a Norman stronghold that guards the entrance of the two ports. Then I cross the center streets, of this city all sailors, I come out from a Spainish door and cross a old bridge, very low. The masses of the castel can be seen from every side and in my mind it gives me a description of the Maracaibo Salgariana. There are so many pretty things to see, docks with big towboat and grey ships, from the slender outline. Military Marine ships, because Augusta at one time was a stronghold of Federico II and then of the Angioini and Aragonesi, from where, in 1571, the fleet sailed that was suppose to destroy the Turkish at Lepanto, it's one of the most important strategic naval bases. Augusta has an appearance, that only, the city of seas have, after all it's all on an island, that certainly offers attractive things, it's monuments and it's history. Augusta is also an industrial center and an active trading port.

While I continue towards Siracusa, the petroleum has completely transformed the view that the old Greeks had known at the time of their clearings, more than seven-hundred years B.C. I'm at an area, where was founded one of the most famous Hellenic city, Megara Hyblaea, and the view that stretches out in all the horizon, is bristling with chimneys, the air has a taste of sulphur. After, I find the first trace of an antique Greek city of Sicily, a part of a necropolis, sheltered from the umbrellas of a coppice of cluster- pine. The archaeological area is very wide, you can see the antique fortifications, l'agora, a part of the city that today we call it, the trading center with it's stores, a temple and a sanctuary, there were also the thermal baths. A part of the findings is under custody in the antiquarian, while the most important pieces, among which, the famous scuplture that reproduces a woman that breast feeds a child, you can see it at the Archaeological Museum of Siracusa. I go towards the sea, I cross Priolo Gargallo. On a deserted beach their are signs, that bring to my attention that I find myself in the bathing area and a I arrive to the peninsula of Magnini, where is Thapsos, a very old installation, of prehistoric epoch. It seems, according to the Greek historiography, that this city, was abondoned after it's foundation, it was the ground from which the Megarcsi left. Those who built Megara Hyblaea. Thereafter, it was the time of the Ateniese that they used it as a departuring spot for their country, of conquest of Sicily. The excavation have brought to light, homes of a three different time periods, that dates from the age of bronze and iron: The homes of the most simple circular forms, those of rectangular forms and those most recent (tenth-century B.C.) with fortification and necropolis. A peninsula that tells us, the history most antique prothesis, towards the open sea, the unnatural forest of the chimneys ,of a history most recent, in which man does not know how to live in his environment without destorying it. It's sad, but it's not the fault of who built the chemical plants, it's our fault with our needs, with our incapacity to live without cars, without all those things that seem to us absolutely normal and indispensable. It makes me wonder, what can the archaeologist find within three or four thousand years: the remainings of a industrial complex, of the end of the second millennium A.C. nearby of an eneolitico installation.

Siracusa so near, it's a beautiful and old city. The heart of Siracusa, Oritigia is an island. It's origin is antique, the small island that saw coming out, from the horizon, the square sails of the Greeks, it's the first piece of Sicilian land on which they built their homes, temples, it's the magic island of the Aretusa fountain. And today, remains, only an urban view, houses side by side that face the small streets, thousands and thousands of special things that need to be discovered. It's the road that runs near the sea, at west, from the strong outline of the castel of Maniace. And the two ports from one side to the other of the bridge, that joins to the dry land, the most new Siracusa, and the temple of Apollo is a tree-lined road, Matteotti, and to see the buildings you need to turn your head backwards in the streets where only a carriage can pass - a car today - and an opening of a square with a round fountain at the center. Ortigia is sea and civilization together. Ortigia urges me to tour the small streets, on the seafront, with the salty sprinkles that the wind brings to my face, glancing at the illuminated window shops, until a restaurant attracts me, and I rediscover those tastes, of those mountain places, of Sicily, remains always a memory.

Maniace Castel, now corrugated grey rock, black rock with the magma creases, solidified, the rock on which restes the Castel of Maniace that it extends like a gigantic platform up to Capo Murro di Porco, with it's lighthouse at the top, to shelter the beach of Ognuna, up to the splendid beach of Fontane Bianche, where the rock sinks in the heart of the land to reappear, the long shore with it's fine sand, in different forms, stratified like a geology text. At Avola, I return in our time period, to cars, traffic, to the many houses, but the seafront is pretty. I arrive to Noto Beach, relative of the most famous - and unfortunate - city of the Sicilian Baroque. A place for the classic vacations, with a beautiful shore. There are white masses of plaster and once again I go above the calm waves, and I find myself between big rocks arranged too regular, to be natural. This is Floro, these are the oldest walls, these, deeply embanked in the ground and refined by the tufts of the flowers and bushes, they are archaic guard towers, in a square form. Here arised a city with it's square, it's public buildings and it's temples. A little ahead, far from the sea and among a coppice of olives, there is a one-handed cylinder of rock, that they had baptized, the colonna pizzuto. On a grave of Hellenistic age. Who was an important man to which was dedicated a similar monument. His name was forgotten, only the big column has resisted, even if it's cut up, but always upright towards the sky.

I arrived in another area but still different - of this coast, in an area so particular that they have made a natural park. Vendicari. A refuge, of innumerable kinds of aquatic birds, with cabins for the lovers, of the birdwatching hidden among the canes of the " big pond" and of the "small pond", and that, what remains of the old tuna nets, by the side of the Sveva tower, exactly on the shore of the sea and in front of the small island. All remains like some time ago. I arrive at Marzamemi, it represents a village of fishermen, low houses gathered around an old tuna net, the doors that open onto the clean rocks of the ballade, fishing boats in the docks and linked in the small roadstead, decorated in the center, a small island with a red house. They have told me that this belonged to family, of one, of the the most well-known comtemporary Sicilian writers, Vitaliano Brancati.

They have built houses, like as, in every other place, behind that village, and houses that hide behind the walls from which appears the foliages of the trees near the salt pan, behind, the church in that squared square and the walls decorated from the briny, does not exist in any other place. It's so perfect that it seems a set of a movie. Now I'm at the road that follows the coast, first the new Marzamemi with it's port where the famous wine of Pachino was loaded, then the beach and then up til, in front, and at the bottom, the Island of Capo Passero, attached to the tip of the land of Porto Palo. From the top, of Capo, I discover another tuna net with it's chimney and it's small uncovered houses and a curious manor surrounded by towers, Liberty style that became a vacation-club. Porto Palo, of Capo Passero is very pretty, a flat island and covered with low vegetation, it's fortress was built by Carlo V.

Pachino, the landscape changes once again. Cultivations, vineyards and tufa rock nibbled from the sea. Then the place that I absolutely wanted to reach, the most south of Europe, more southern than Tunisi, the Island of the Correnti, you can actually reach it by land, it's the point where the two seas meet, the Ionio and the Mediterranean clashes. The Island of the Correnti isn't very big, at the center, a lighthouse that dominants, rocks and reefs on which the waves break. And finally I arrive to the end of the province, after having toured among other salt pans, up to the Punta delle Formiche. Now that my trip is over, I continue to go through all the small streets that I find, just so that, I stay a little longer. In the afternoon I'm there again, on the island, surmounted by the lighthouse, the one where the two seas meet. I'm again on the sand, I walk as close as possible to the shoreline, so that, I don't sink too much, I go up to the last reefs of the dry land. A little leap, is enough, on to a rock, and I would be on the island. It would be the end of a trip, that shouldn't end. I want it to remain a piece of land unknown. I sit down to see, waiting for sunset, up till the lighthouse turns on, at intervals. I turn to look - it's already dark - while I return to my car.