Flying into Catania or visiting the east coast city on your Sicily adventure? Our guide for travellers has got you covered - discover 13 wonderful things to do in Catania. It took a while for us to love Catania, but we got there in the end. The realisation occurred on our final night in the city, with dinner and drinks by the castle walls. By day, this area was quiet and unremarkable, empty aside from the odd gaggle of teens and a handful of tourists.
The crap graffiti on blackened walls intimidated rather than welcomed. Bars opened up and spilled out onto the sidestreets left vacant in the daylight.
A piazza libre offered free books and strong cocktails under fluorescent light. The soundtrack was all Sicilian chatter and scooter revs. The area, best accessed via a street of coffin makers, revealed itself to be one of the coolest spots in Catania; we just had to wait.
It may surprise or disappoint the first-timer that the second largest city in Sicily doesn't have the easy romantic aesthetic or atmosphere of other settlements by the sea in Italy; the underpinning of this island port city is more industry than poetry.
Therefore, arriving here with false expectations or visiting directly after the gorgeous trio of Cefalu , Taormina , or Syracuse may have the same jarring jolt as switching your playlist from opera to punk. However, Catania - sandwiched between the Ionian Sea and a volcano, a city shaped by lava and reborn from under 17th century ashes - offers up a wonderful window into the Sicilian palate and place in history.
