Siracusa - Fonte Arethusa

From the Cathedral Square in Syracuse the tour continues through Via Picherali down to the Spring of Arethusa, a pond surrounded by papryus reeds and formed by a freshwater spring near the sea. An ancient myth, handed down to us by Ovid in his "Metamorphoses", states that the nymph Arethusa fled from the Greek river-god Alpheios, fell into the sea on the east coast of the Peloponnese and surfaced again on Ortygia in the old town of Syracuse.

In 1981, the 2,000th anniversary of the death of Ovid, the city of Syracuse erected a tablet "by the mythical waters of Arethusa" in memory of "he who in Latin chant did re-awaken the Greek rhythms of (the Syracusan) Theocritus".