Sunday! Usually in Italy things are shut down on Sunday so we planned to go to the beach today. I had done research a while ago and saw that you can rsvp for beach chairs at the private beach of Agua Resort. This resort is right near San Lorenzo beach and is supposed to be one of the best beaches in the area. So after breakfast off we went. It took us about two hours to drive there but it should've taken an hour. There was some traffic on the way to Noto but once we passed the congestion traffic was free.
Agua Resort is kind of misleading. I thought it would be this nice resort with nice facilities but it was more of a collection of beach homes for rent and public facilities. The facilities were nice, clean and casual but I expected something a bit more upscale. Oh well. It was also hard to figure out where to 'check in.' Eventually somehow directed us to a group of Italians just standing around so I went over and showed them my rsvp which they did not have on their beach map. It was fine though, they had plenty of chairs and we rented three beach hairs under a palm tree for 20 euros. I was also told we could rent towels from them (our Ortigia hotel didn't have beach towels) but there were none to rent. Lastly I didn't see any food or drink services!!! Maybe we just too early in the season. It was kind of windy today and too cold to go in the water. Anyway we sat around for a few hours just relaxing. The chairs were nice and clean, not grimy so it worked out not to have towels over them at least.
I do recommend this place for later in the summer but probably too cold for May. It wasn't cold but not really too warm either. The beach was pretty well kept and the colors of the water were clear blue.
San Lorenzo beach
Afterwards we came back to Ortigia and explored parts of the city we had seen before. The main attractions seem to be on the northern and western end of the island and it was very lovely to walk around and take in the culture.
Our best meal of the trip in Sicily so far was at Divino Mare. Everything was well cooked and fresh. The mussels were delicious and meaty and the salmon was sooo good. I had the truffle pasta with small shrimp and that was strong flavored and perfectly al dente as well. We also tried the codfish which was good but a tad saltier. All for 68 euros with wine! Cheaper and better quality than yesterday's meal.
Divino Mare
Then we walked by the Duomo at night which was beautiful and capped off the night with gelato nearby. Pistachio anything in Sicily is so good!
Duomo
Pistachio gelato is the best!