Syracuse

Syracuse is the one you fall for, and then start looking at apartments.

Once a rival to Athens and one of the great cities of the ancient world, Syracuse is now a calm, golden-stone city on Sicily's southeast coast, built around Ortigia, a tiny island of an old town where white-washed alleys open onto the sea. Here a Greek temple is built into the bones of the cathedral, the morning revolves around the fish market, and the evening is a long, slow stroll along the water. It is the gentlest of Sicily's big-name cities, smaller and softer than Palermo or Catania, the choice of soul-searchers, history lovers, and people who want beauty without the urban intensity.