The Ortigia Market: Where People Still Shop Like They Used To

The Ortigia market isn’t built for tourists: it’s where locals still buy their fish, vegetables and bread. It runs every day except Sunday, from 7:30am to 2pm, along Via Emanuele De Benedictis — Wednesdays and Saturdays are the busiest, with the most stalls open, if you want to see the market at its fullest.

The market hasn’t always been here. The historic building with the porticoes that everyone now calls the “Antico Mercato” stands on Via Trento, a stone’s throw from the Temple of Apollo: it was built between 1899 and 1900, on land the city had bought a few years earlier, where the old Spanish city walls once ran. For nearly a century it was Siracusa’s main market. Only in the late 1980s did the fish, produce and craft stalls move to the wider Via De Benedictis, where the market still stands today.

Walking through it early in the morning is a different way to see Ortigia. There are no shop windows staged for visitors: just crates of fish just off the boats, stalls of seasonal vegetables, the smell of warm bread, and vendors calling out to regulars by name. It’s also one of the best places to understand what this city actually eats, before you ever sit down at a restaurant.

If you’re staying with us — whether in one of the rooms in Santa Lucia or one of the vacation houses on Via Nizza — the market is walkable without leaving Ortigia. Go early, pick up something different for breakfast — fresh bread, seasonal fruit — and take your time on the way back, maybe stopping at the nearby Temple of Apollo, just steps from the market.

A practical tip: arrive before 9am, while the stalls are still full and it isn’t too hot yet to walk between them. The market closes at 2pm, and the shutters stay down until the next morning — in Ortigia, what you don’t catch in the morning, you miss.