We knew little positive about Catania before stopping here for three nights in the last week of June 2018. Historically, it's been one disaster after another: its residents deported or enslaved by Greek tyrants, the city occupied by Carthaginians, plague in the Middle Ages, lava flows from Mount Etna in the 1600s, followed by an earthquake, then falling into crime and urban decay. Yet, today, it's a surprisingly pleasant city to visit that seems younger than its years, possibly due to the number of university students in school here.
The video, above (I apologize for its abruptness, but this blog platform can't accommodate large video files), shows one of the many delights we stumbled upon here. On a Monday evening walk after dinner through the softly dark streets of the historic district, we came upon someone playing tango music from a portable sound system in the cathedral plaza. And, amazingly to us, people had come to tango. We assume this is a more or less regular thing as many of the dancers seemed acquainted with each other, though they were not necessarily dancing with their romantic partners. People changed partners when one or the other wanted to sit on the edge of the fountain to rest.
The surprises, however, began even before we reached Catania. On the drive from Taormina, we wanted to stop in at one of the small towns en route. Our first choice was Acireale, but after driving around a bit without finding a legal place to park, we headed to the next town, Aci Castello, where we explored the ruins of a seaside fortress and gazed out on the Riviera dei Ciclopi, marked with gigantic rocks that the Cyclops threw at Odysseus as he fled after blinding and tricking the Cyclops. Who knew this stuff is as real as rocks that you can see with your own eyes! Or don't you believe Homer?
Our inn in Catania, B&B Sciara Larmisi, was easy to find. Again, our inn occupied just one floor of a large building, but that floor included a very nice outdoor terrace where we had breakfast. Our innkeeper helped us find a guided tour to Mount Etna, which we had been counting on. It's possible to approach Etna from the north, using Taormina as a base, but there are more lava flows, craters and ash heaps on the southern side, so we chose to go from Catania, which is southeast of the volcano (and well within the danger zone).
The rest of our time here was spent wandering the city (we even took a tour on one of those for-goobers-only tourist trains), exploring its fish market and the huge Villa Bellini park, and enjoying its robust passeggiata on the pedestrian-only Via Etnea.
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| In the distance are the rocks that the Cyclops supposedly threw at Odysseus as he escaped. This is the view from the fortress at Aci Castello. |
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| Spiderman seems right at home on the wall of a palace in Catania. |
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| A zoom lens created this compressed view of Via Garibaldi, looking west to the black-and-white Garibaldi Gate, which is well outside the city's historic center. |
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| This is the view from one of our balconies in Catania. The little gray and black Citroën C3 at lower left was our rental; it brought us here from Naples and eventually took us to Palermo. This is Piazza Cutelli. |
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| The view east from another balcony. This looks down Via Vittorio Emanuele II toward the Piazza dei Martiri and the Ionian Sea. |
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| This photo looks the other way on Vittorio Emanule II, west toward the historic central district. |
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| We walked to the Garibaldi Gate. In the distance you can see the dome of Catania's Duomo or cathedral. |
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| This elephant is being squished by the clock atop the Garibaldi Gate. The dark stone is lava, which is used in many ways throughout Catania. |
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| A still photo from the tango session featured in the video at the start of this post. The building in the background is the Duomo. |
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| All this food accompanied aperitivos at a sidewalk cafe on Via Etnea. What look like meatballs are fried balls of rice. Most places give snacks of some sort with cocktails, but this was excessive. |
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| The park Villa Bellini provides acres of gardens, promenades and fountains near the center of Catania. |
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| Signs on the southern slope of Mount Etna. |
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| Mounds of ash attest to geothermal activity not too far underground at Mount Etna, which is perhaps best thought of as a huge mound of craters and vents, not a cone-shaped volcano. |
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| Desolation left by eruptions decades ago. |
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| Lichen are the first plants to grow on lava flows, and they begin the process of breaking down the rock and leavening it with organic matter. Other plants come much later. |
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| Different colors reflect different eruptions. These hikers are dwarfed by Etna's size, and this is just a tiny bit of the volcano. |
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| One of hundreds of craters scattered around Etna. When Etna erupts, its force is seldom diverted to old craters, meaning that new ones are created each time. |
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| The entrance to a lava tube, which was formed by a stream of moving lava beneath a hardened surface. The lava drained out, leaving a pipe-like formation. This tube was about a kilometer long. |
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| Inside the tube, the only light comes from headlamps. The floor was very rough, sharp and irregular. If you tripped, you'd probably receive a nasty gash. |
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| Striations on the walls indicate there were more than one lava flow through this tube. |
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