Look what I found in Siracusa. A laundromat! (Laundry water?)
Literally around the corner. One block away. When I say ‘block’, I mean just a few steps. The blocks are small, nothing like the blocks in my own Clifton Hill and nothing like the blocks in Rome. You need to take a cut lunch to travel two Roman ‘blocks’.
What else do I need in Siracusa?
The bank!
This photo is taken from my balcony and the building smack bang on the corner is the BNL bank. Inside the building, through the sliding door, is the bancomat – the ATM.
It’s secure, see?
Across the road from the bank, on my side of the street.
So, add “eria” to the end of a noun and you have the name of the shop. Pizzeria, pasticceria, macelleria (butcher shop) and pescheria (fish shop).
Facile! Easy!
* Fellow Australian Brian Carrol says that
The ‘teria’ idea works in Spanish too. But ferreteria threw me for a while. Why would so many shops be selling ferrets? Then my tiny knowledge of Latin cut in. That’s where you go to buy things made of iron. An ironmongers, as it once would have been in Oz. Or a hardware shop. Nowadays, it’s Bunnings.
I haven’t seen a ferreteria but I’ve seen plenty of shops called merceria. We haven’t used the term Mercers in English for a number of years. The Mercer became the Draper, and the shop, the Drapers.
The other shop I quickly learned to find is the all important farmacia, the only place you can buy panadol (or any paracetamolo).
Outside of the gelateria is the bus stop.
I don’t know where the buses run to yet, they’re only local buses so I’ll catch one this week and see where it takes me.
There are so many bars with little tables outside for breakfast that it’s hard to choose.
Trusting to Fate (this is Sicilia after all where il destino rules) I chose this little bar for my caffe and cornetto (cornetto piccolo, I can’t finish the big ones).
For dinner la cena I have, right next door to my appartamento, a little family-run trattoria.
La Spigola. The deep sea Bass.
The bright sun of the Sicilian morning throws my photographic subjects into shade and La Spigola is no exception.
But you can see the Porto Piccolo at the end of the street!
