Highlights of Catania, Catania, Italy

The second-largest city in Sicily was even less of a certainty on our itinerary than Palazzolo Acreide. It is part of the same Val di Noto World Heritage site as Ragusa, Noto, Scicli, and since a big city always requires a bigger allocation of time, we initially considered leaving it out altogether in favor of additional smaller destinations. Barely any grand-trip-around-Sicily list of recommendations calls Catania a must anyway.

But our plans are never immutable. A couple of adjustments for the sake of reducing driving distances both before and during the trip meant that we had a few hours to reallocate to visiting Catania on the day that we shifted our base from Noto to Taormina.

Of course, it is worth repeating that a big city always requires a bigger allocation of time. Driving in and out of the city center is an enhanced challenge in larger locales (order-of-magnitude enhanced in Sicily). Parking requires getting to and fro. Add in time for lunch - and all we had to spare for seeing Catania was maybe an hour and a half.

So we walked through the famous fish market as it was wrapping up for the day, lingered on Piazza del Duomo, walked a few mostly pedestrian central streets. All churches were predictably closed by the time we reached the city core around noon, and waiting until 4pm for them to reopen their doors was not an option. The meager photographic output reflects the sadly fleeting attempt at exploring the city. ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).