What’s so special about this sweet and smooth seaside trail cut out of rock?

The former railway track gets The Idiot’s coveted rating as an ideal MedTrek trail.

Don’t leave Syracuse, Sicily, without MedTrekking, biking, jogging, walking or just admiring the seaside trail heading out of town along a former railway line.

The tailored and well-tended path should be duplicated everywhere on the Mediterranean Sea where there’s an out-of-commission train track. Unfortunately the 8-kilometer trail ends at the Siracusa port north of town and anyone with any sense should turn around when they get there.

The Idiot, of course, did not.

How are my new soles are doing after three days? Just fine!

Even my disintegrating hiking shoes, which really went downhill after encountering sharp rocks when I MedTrekked around Gozo last weekend, could handle the smooth trail out of Syracuse.

But I still let out a scream of joy when I surprisingly discovered a Decathlon outlet near the over-industrialized Port of Siracusa. I MedTrekked right into my favorite European sporting goods store, had a quick consultation with Marlena (yeah, another bella ragazza Siciliana) about what I like in a hiking shoe (lightweight, quick-to-dry, good soul), and was quickly out the door with a new pair.

Now I’m equipped with the proper footwear to continue my march north to Messina, climb Mount Etna and frolic on the Aeolian Islands.

For the record, I left my old soles for display in the window as an example of when it’s time to change shoes and move on.

The Sicilian Regional authorities get the uncoveted MedTrekker award for ruining ruins.

A locked gate and weeds rather than remnants of the Middle Bronze Age.

I included two renowned archeological sites in my MedTrek walking adventure between Siracusa and Augusta yesterday only to learn that one had been inexplicably closed and the other had been abusively neglected.

Thapsos, which thrived during the 15^th-13^th centuries BC, greeted me with a locked gate, an out-of-control field of weeds and no explanation why it was refusing paying customers. A Sicilian macho guy I met out on the Magnisi peninsula blamed the closure on Arnold Schwarzenegger. I don’t buy that, though I didn’t argue because he was with five buddies.

Megara Hyblaea, which is overshadowed by chimneys from the oil and petrochemical plants at the Augusta port, features layers of life from different civilizations, including the Megarians who settled it in 728 BC and Hellenistic remains from a few centuries later. Two French archeologists working on the site, who agreed that its dilapidated state is an embarrassment to both past and present civilizations, said that it’s a problem of “No money, no people.”

“It’s in such neglect that I’m amazed that you were even able to find it,” one of the Frenchmen said to me. “They’ve let it go to pot.”

And who are “they?”

The buck starts and stops with the Sicilian Regional political authorities who treat these “secondary” archeological treasures like rat-infested Italian garbage dumps. It’s time to come down hard on them for ruining ruins like Thapsos and Megara Hyblaea. Want to get involved, Arnold?

Text and Photos: Joel Stratte-McClure

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About Joel

Joel Stratte-McClure has been a global trekker since the 1970s. He lived in France for over 30 years, working as a journalist, before he turned his attention to a unique life-time-project of walking the shores of the Mediterranean. The first 4,401 kilometers are explored in his inspirational and entertaining first book "The Idiot and the Odyssey: Walking the Mediterranean." The next 4,401 kilometers are covered in the gods-filled sequel, "The Idiot and the Odyssey II: Myth, Madness and Magic on the Mediterranean,” published on Valentine's Day 2013. The last 4,401 kilometers will be discussed in the last book of the trilogy currently entitled "The Idiot and the Odyssey III: Alexander the Great Walks the Mediterranean."