Every year on 21 February, the International Tourist Guide Day is celebrated all over the world, established in 1990 by the World Federation of Tourist Guide Associations and promoted in Italy by the National Tourist Guide Association. Qualified tourist guides, part of local associations, make their professionalism available to the public, offering free guided tours to cultural institutes and places and focusing attention on well-known but at the same time little-known monuments, with the intent to divulge knowledge of sites not subject to large tourist flows. This year the Syracuse Tourist Guide Association wanted to focus attention on Villa Reimann, located a short distance from the Parco della Neapolis and the Chiesa del Crocifisso in Noto.
We were so captivated by the figure of Christiane Reimann, a Danish nurse who lived in Syracuse between the thirties and the seventies, to want to dedicate the international day of the Tourist Guide to this figure so important for our city and so, unfortunately, often forgotten .
Who was Christiane Reimann, a pioneer of international nursing? Christiane Reimann was born in Copenhagen in 1888 to a wealthy stockbroker and Norwegian mother. Thanks to his strong and determined personality, despite the opposition of the family, he managed to get a diploma in nursing at a very young age and to go to New York where he worked and studied. Her meeting with Syracuse was linked to her sentiment towards Carl Frederik Alter, a psychiatrist, who convinced her to settle with him in this city. The story with Alter was troubled and soon ended, but Christiane remained in Sicily in the property she purchased. At his death Christiane decided to leave the Villa to the Municipality of Syracuse, in order to encourage cultural and academic activities. She became such an important personality that an international award was dedicated to her: the Christiane Reimann Prize.
The Villa is situated in a strategic position, looking towards the sea, and consists of a botanical garden of 16000 hectares, which preserves over 150 different plant species, where Reimann dedicated itself to various activities. Thanks to his travels around the world, his experience and his rich knowledge, Christiane preserved the necropolis kept inside his property, which represents the most unusual area.
Task of the guides of the AGT Siracusa, on this special occasion, to show visitors the immense patrimony kept inside the Villa composed of furnishings of the seventeenth century, thousands of books and paintings of inestimable value. A tour inside the wonderful garden allowed visitors to discover the unique plant species present in Syracuse and in the world as well as the unpublished Christian hypogea explored by Paolo Orsi and the ancient Latomiuncola, the smallest of the Syracuse stone quarries.
Villa Reimann
