Syracuse is far more than the island of Ortygia. The mainland district of Neapolis holds the Greek theatre, carved into the hillside and still used for classical drama in early summer, and the Latomie, the huge quarries from which the Greeks cut their stone, now filled with citrus trees and overhung with cliffs. The most famous cavity is the Ear of Dionysius, a tall curved cave with remarkable acoustics, which Caravaggio is said to have named when he visited in 1608. The same painter's Burial of Saint Lucy hangs in Syracuse too, dark and physical, with two gravediggers in the foreground dwarfing the saint.
The second half of the heritage listing sits well inland. Pantalica is a limestone plateau cut by the deep gorges of the Anapo and Calcinara rivers, and its cliffs are riddled with thousands of rock-cut tombs, small square chambers dug into the face from about the thirteenth century BC onward. Nobody knows exactly who the people were, but they lived on the high plateau as a fortified settlement, long before the Greeks arrived on the coast. The scale of the cemetery, row on row of dark openings, is unsettling.
Getting there is half the pleasure. The road from Syracuse leads through Floridia and Sortino, and then enters hills of carob and olive and oak, with views of the gorge. The last miles are narrow, steep and sometimes rough, and the surface can be broken after rain. A part of the old railway that served the valley now forms a footpath.
Syracuse has all the fuel and food a rider needs, and a city of nearly a hundred thousand people has pumps on every approach. Before leaving, try a granita made with almond or mulberry and a brioche for breakfast in the Sicilian manner, which will keep you going.
Further south, the papyrus plants along the Ciane river are another curious thing. They are often described as the only wild stand of papyrus in Europe.