Is Catania Worth Visiting? Yes — And It's Better Than Taormina for Most People
Autore: La Redazione di www.tourleaderpro.com
Is Catania worth visiting? The city built repeatedly on lava, destroyed repeatedly by Etna, rebuilt each time in Baroque black basalt — a city of 300,000 with one of the finest historic fish markets in Italy, a UNESCO-listed Baroque centre, the composer Bellini's birthplace, and a street food culture that is among the most exciting in Sicily. Taormina gets the tourists. Catania gets the Sicilians. This comparison explains everything you need to know about which is more interesting.
What Catania Actually Is
Catania sits at the base of Mount Etna on Sicily's eastern coast, 50km south of Taormina. Etna destroyed it in 1669 (lava flow that reached the sea) and the earthquake of 1693 destroyed what the lava had spared. The current city is almost entirely an 18th-century reconstruction — built in the Sicilian Baroque style that followed the earthquake, using black volcanic basalt from Etna as the primary building material. The result is a city that is simultaneously uniformly Baroque and uniformly dark — the contrast between the white limestone detailing and the black basalt base gives Catania's historic centre a dramatic chiaroscuro effect unlike any other Baroque city in Italy.
La Pescheria: The Fish Market
The Catania fish market (La Pescheria) operates in the Piazza del Duomo and the surrounding streets every morning except Sunday, from approximately 7am to 2pm. It is, by the consistently repeated judgment of chefs, food writers, and market obsessives, one of the finest fish markets in the Mediterranean. The combination of proximity to the sea (the fishing boats return before the market opens), the Sicilian theatrical instinct (vendors shout, sing, gesticulate, and perform their merchandise), and the extraordinary variety of the catch (everything from swordfish and tuna to sea urchins, cuttlefish, clams, and fish species with no common English name) creates an experience that is simultaneously practical (people are buying food) and theatrical (everything is performed for effect). Go before 9am for the best of it. Take photographs if you ask. Buy something and eat it on the spot.
Questions: Is Catania Worth Visiting?
Is Catania better than Taormina?
For most purposes, yes. Catania is a real city with real life. Taormina is a resort town beautifully positioned on a hill above the sea — spectacular scenographically, very expensive, very touristic, very far from the Sicily that Sicilians inhabit. If you want the postcard, go to Taormina. If you want Sicily, spend your time in Catania. The choice depends entirely on what you're looking for.
How do I get to Catania?
Catania Fontanarossa Airport is the busiest in Sicily, with direct flights from across Europe and all Italian cities. The airport is 5km from the centre — taxi (€15) or the Alibus shuttle (€4, 20 min to Piazza Stesicoro). By train from Messina: 1h15. From Palermo: 2h45 by train or 2h30 by bus. By car: the A18 autostrada follows the eastern coast.
What food is Catania known for?
The arancino (the classic Sicilian fried rice ball, here served in multiple shapes and fillings — not to be confused with the Palermitan arancina), the granita (Catanese granita is creamier and more intensely flavoured than the Roman or Milanese versions — the granita al pistacchio with almond-milk brioche is the correct morning in Catania), pasta alla Norma (rigatoni with aubergine, tomato, ricotta salata — invented in Catania, named after Bellini's opera), and the extraordinary street food of the Pescheria area: panino con stigghiola (intestines, not for the faint-hearted but authentic), polpo bollito (boiled octopus from a cart), and the entire fried fish vocabulary of the Sicilian coast.
Who was Bellini and what is his connection to Catania?
Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835) was born in Catania and is, after Verdi, the most performed Italian operatic composer of the 19th century. His operas — La Sonnambula, Norma, I Puritani — are the pinnacle of the bel canto tradition. The Teatro Massimo Bellini in Catania (named for him) is one of the most beautiful opera houses in Italy, opened in 1890. The birthplace of Bellini (Casa Natale di Bellini, Via Vittorio Emanuele II) is now a small museum. The pasta alla Norma takes its name from his most famous opera. Bellini's remains were transferred to the Duomo of Catania in 1876 — he died in Paris at 33, in circumstances that remain medically debated.
Is Catania safe?
Catania has a reputation in Sicily (partly outdated) for urban roughness. The city centre and the tourist areas are perfectly safe. The Pescheria area requires normal urban awareness. The areas around the train station early in the morning and late at night deserve standard caution. Overall: manageable and safe for any prepared traveler.
Cenni Storici su Catania
Catania fu fondata dai Calcidesi di Naxos intorno al 729 a.C. come colonia greca — uno dei più antichi insediamenti greci della Sicilia. Il suo nome greco era Katane. Gerone I di Siracusa deportò l'intera popolazione nel 476 a.C. e la ripopolò con mercenari. Tornata greca nel 461, fu conquistata da Roma nel 263 a.C. Sotto l'Impero Romano fu una delle città più ricche della Sicilia — il teatro romano (ancora visibile nel centro storico) e l'anfiteatro romano (sotto Piazza Stesicoro, con sezioni esposte) datano a questo periodo. La distruzione del 1693 fu così totale che quasi nulla sopravvisse: il Catania che vedete oggi è praticamente il progetto di ricostruzione del tardo XVII-XVIII secolo, uno dei più ambiziosi e coerenti dell'Italia barocca meridionale. Vedi anche: Sicily · Mount Etna · Siracusa.