Catania: what to see, where to stay and how to get around
In 1669 lava from Etna flowed around the walls of Catania and into the sea, and twenty-four years later, in 1693, an earthquake brought down almost everything still standing and killed most of the people. The town was rebuilt in one piece, in baroque, out of the very lava that had threatened it — black stone trimmed with white — which is why it looks like no other city in Italy. Two hours, flat, and the fish market is only in the morning.
A short history of Catania
In 729 BC Greek settlers founded Katane at the foot of Mount Etna. The mountain has shaped its fate: in 1669 lava flowed up to the city walls and into the sea, and in 1693 an earthquake destroyed almost the entire city and killed many of its inhabitants. The city was rebuilt in dark volcanic basalt, with wide streets and in the Baroque style, and for this reason it was declared a World Heritage Site in 2002. In 1801 the composer Vincenzo Bellini was born here. The city's symbol is an elephant of lava stone that stands in the cathedral square.
The ten best sights in Catania
1Piazza del DuomoA baroque square of black lava and white stone
2Elephant FountainA lava elephant carrying an Egyptian obelisk, the symbol of the town
3Sant’Agata CathedralThe saint’s relics, and the tomb of the composer Bellini
4Fontana dell’AmenanoAn underground river surfacing in a sheet of water like a bedsheet
5Via CrociferiA short street of four baroque churches, under an arch
6Badia di Sant’AgataClimb to the dome for the view of the town and Etna
7Benedictine MonasteryOne of the largest monasteries in Europe, now the university; the lava is in the courtyard
8Castello UrsinoA castle that stood on the sea until the lava of 1669 moved the shore
9Roman TheatreA Roman theatre with houses built into its seats
10Teatro Massimo BelliniThe opera house named after the town’s composer
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What is an audio walk?
Tours in Catania →A guide in your headphones: open the walk on our site, walk from stop to stop, and at each one your phone tells its story. No guide, no group, and free. This is the first walk in Catania:
Free walking tours in Catania
Rebuilt from the lava
In 1669 lava from Etna flowed around the walls of Catania and into the sea, and twenty-four years later, in 1693, an earthquake brought down almost everything still standing and killed most of the people. The town was rebuilt in one piece, in baroque, out of the very lava that had threatened it — black stone trimmed with white — which is why it looks like no other city in Italy. Two hours, flat, and the fish market is only in the morning.
- Elephant Fountain · U Liotru, the town calls it: an ancient elephant carved from black lava, of uncertain date,, carrying an Egyptian obelisk, set up here by the architect Vaccarini in 1736 as the centrepiece of the rebuilt square. The legend ties it to a sorcerer named Heliodorus who rode it, and the elephant was the town’s symbol long before the fountain.
- Sant’Agata Cathedral · Agatha was a young woman of Catania martyred in the third century, and her veil is said to have stopped the lava more than once. Every February, for three days, hundreds of thousands of people in white robes haul her silver reliquary through the streets on ropes, all night. The composer Vincenzo Bellini is buried here.
- La Pescheria · The fish market spreads down the steps behind the cathedral every morning: swordfish heads standing on the slabs, sea urchins, anchovies sold by the shovel, and the sellers shouting over each other. By early afternoon it is hosed down and gone.
- Fontana dell’Amenano · The river Amenano still runs under the town, buried by the lava, and here it comes to the surface for a moment and spills over a marble rim in a single thin sheet. The town calls it the water like a bedsheet. Under the market, you can hear it.
- Castello Ursino · The emperor Frederick II built this castle in the 1230s on a cliff over the sea. In 1669 the lava flowed around it and on into the water, and when it cooled the castle stood a few hundred metres inland, on a plain of black rock. You can see the lava against its walls.
- Via Crociferi · The purest street of the rebuilding: a few hundred metres with four baroque churches and convents facing each other, crossed by the arch the nuns of San Benedetto used to pass between their buildings without being seen in the street.
Under the town
Ancient Catania is still there, ten metres down under the lava and the baroque. A Roman theatre has houses built into its seats, an amphitheatre lies below a modern square, and a vast monastery was built on top of Roman houses. This route goes down through the layers and up onto a dome for the view. Half a day, mostly flat.
- Roman Theatre · After the theatre fell out of use the town built over it, and the curved rows of seats became the foundations of houses. Excavation has cleared part of it, but some houses still sit in the bowl, and the small odeon beside it is ringed by living rooms.
- Bellini Museum · Vincenzo Bellini was born in this house in 1801, the son and grandson of musicians, and became one of the great composers of Italian opera before he died in Paris at thirty-three. Norma was his masterpiece, and the town named its pasta after it: pasta alla Norma, with fried aubergine and salted ricotta.
- Benedictine Monastery · One of the largest monasteries in Europe, rebuilt after 1693 for the younger sons of the Sicilian nobility, who lived here in such luxury that it became a byword. The lava of 1669 stopped against its walls and is still there in one of the gardens. Under it, excavations found the floors of Roman houses. Today it is the university.
- Piazza Stesicoro · In the middle of a busy square a section of a Roman amphitheatre lies exposed several metres below the street. It was one of the largest in the empire, and most of it is still under the buildings around the square.
- Badia di Sant’Agata · A church of the rebuilding by Vaccarini, and a stair leads up around its dome to a walkway. From there the whole black-and-white town is laid out, with Etna smoking at the end of Via Etnea.
- Piazza del Duomo · On the map, the quarter around the cathedral square still carries the name Giudecca, from the Jewish community that lived in Catania until the expulsion of 1492. The community left little else behind, and the name on the map is most of what remains.
Syracuse and the south-east
An hour south is Syracuse, once the greatest Greek city in the West, larger than Athens, home of Archimedes. Its old town is an island, and on it is one of the oldest Jewish ritual baths in Europe. Inland, the 1693 earthquake produced a whole region of baroque towns built at once. A full day and a car, or the train to Syracuse.
- Neapolis, Syracuse · The Greek theatre of Syracuse, cut into the rock in the fifth century BC, is where Aeschylus staged plays, and Greek tragedy is still performed in it every summer. Below it are the limestone quarries where seven thousand Athenian prisoners were held and died after their invasion failed in 413 BC.
- Ear of Dionysius · A cave in the quarries shaped like a tall ear, which carries the faintest whisper to its top. The painter Caravaggio, visiting in 1608, gave it its name, after the story that the tyrant Dionysius used it to listen to his prisoners.
- Fonte Aretusa · A spring of fresh water bubbling up a few metres from the sea on the island of Ortigia. The Greeks said it was the nymph Arethusa, who fled under the sea from Greece and surfaced here. Papyrus grows in it — one of the very few places in Europe where it grows wild.
- Giudecca of Syracuse · In the old Jewish quarter of Ortigia, under a house, a stair cut into the rock goes down eighteen metres to a ritual bath with three pools fed by a spring. It was filled in when the Jews were expelled in 1492 and rediscovered only in the late 1980s, and it is thought to be among the oldest in Europe.
- Noto Cathedral · The 1693 earthquake destroyed the old town of Noto, and it was rebuilt on a new site a few kilometres away, all at once, in golden limestone. The dome of the cathedral fell in 1996 and took eleven years to rebuild. In the evening the whole street turns honey-coloured.
- Caltagirone · A hill town that has made ceramics for a thousand years, since the Arabs brought the craft. Its stair of a hundred and forty-two steps has a strip of painted tiles on every riser, each in a different century’s style, and on two nights in July it is lit with thousands of oil lamps.
Getting to Catania and getting around
- Catania Airport · Fifteen minutes from the centre by the Alibus
- Catania Centrale · Trains to Taormina, Syracuse and Palermo, by the sea
Cheap eats in Catania
Catania has its own way with Sicilian street food. The arancino here is cone-shaped, like Etna, and takes the masculine name. In the evening the grills of Via Plebiscito cook horse meat in the street, a Catanese habit. And at the old kiosks the drink of the town is seltz limone e sale — soda water with fresh lemon and a pinch of salt — a euro or two, stirred at the counter.
- Via Plebiscito · Horse-meat grills on the pavement, evenings
- Via Etnea · Granita and brioche at the old cafés of the main street
- La Pescheria · Raw sea urchins and oysters eaten at the stalls
- Bellini Museum · Pasta alla Norma, named after his opera, in the lanes nearby
- Piazza Stesicoro · Arancini, cone-shaped, from the bars on the square
- Piazza Carlo Alberto · Fruit, nuts and cheese from the daily market
Museums in Catania
Catania’s history is volcanic: a Greek city, a Roman one, buried by lava and shaken down by earthquake, and rebuilt each time in place. The museums are the layers — Roman stones under baroque streets — and the great collections of the region are an hour away in Syracuse.
- Castello Ursino · The civic museum inside the castle the lava moved inland
- Benedictine Monastery · Guided tours of the cloisters and the Roman floors beneath
- Bellini Museum · Scores, letters and the composer’s piano
- Roman Theatre · A theatre with houses in its seats
- Villa Romana del Casale · Roman floor mosaics; an hour and a half inland
- Neapolis, Syracuse · The Greek theatre, the quarries and the archaeological museum
Nature and day trips near Catania
Everything here is shaped by Etna, which rises straight behind the city to over three thousand metres. Its lava made the black coast north of town, with castles and sea stacks on the rock, and its fertile slopes are covered in vineyards, orchards and pine.
- Monti Rossi · The 1669 cones, now a pine wood
- Rifugio Sapienza · The road’s end on Etna; cable car and guides up
- Cyclops Islands · Basalt sea stacks; snorkelling in a marine reserve
- Aci Castello · Swim from the black lava rocks under the castle
- Oasi del Simeto · Dunes and birds at the river mouth
- Fonte Aretusa · Wild papyrus beside the sea in Syracuse
Things to do in Catania with kids
A live volcano behind the city is the great draw for children, and the south side of Etna can be reached by road to a landscape of black craters. In town the fish market is a show in itself, and for a beach day the long sand of the Plaia is ten minutes away.
- Rifugio Sapienza · Walk on black craters; bring jackets
- La Pescheria · Swordfish heads and shouting sellers
- La Plaia · A long sand beach close to town
- Villa Bellini · A park with a flower clock
- Castello Ursino · A real castle with lava against its walls
- Ear of Dionysius · Whisper and hear the echo
Holy places in Catania
Catania is the city of Saint Agatha, and her feast in February is one of the great religious events of Europe. The churches are baroque, all built after 1693. And in the region are two traces of the Jews of Sicily: the name of a quarter in Catania and a ritual bath under a house in Syracuse.
- Sant’Agata Cathedral · The February feast of the city’s saint
- Giudecca of Syracuse · A mikveh eighteen metres under a house
- Piazza del Duomo · The quarter still called Giudecca on the map
- Via Crociferi · Four baroque churches in a few hundred metres
- Noto Cathedral · The rebuilt dome of the golden town
- Acireale Cathedral · The baroque cathedral of the carnival town
Nightlife in Catania
Catania has the liveliest nights in Sicily, thanks to its university. The old town around the cathedral fills with students after ten, the bars spill into the lanes behind the Teatro Massimo, and in summer the lidos of the Plaia run late.
- Teatro Massimo Bellini · The bar lanes around the opera house
- Piazza del Duomo · The lit square and the students after ten
- Via Plebiscito · Late-night grills in the smoke
- La Plaia · Beach clubs in summer
- Aci Castello · Seafront bars under the castle
Frequently asked questions about Catania
What is there to see in Catania?
The top sights in Catania are Piazza del Duomo, Elephant Fountain and Sant’Agata Cathedral. The full list on this page has 10 sights, each with a photo and a short note.
How many days do you need in Catania?
Three to four days are enough to see the best of Catania without rushing, including at least one walking tour.
Is there a free walking tour in Catania?
Yes. sleepntrip has 3 free audio walks in Catania, with no guide and no group: your phone tells the story at every stop. The first one: Rebuilt from the lava.
How do you get to Catania and get around?
The main ways are Catania Airport and Catania Centrale. Full details are in the transport section on this page.
Where to stay in Catania, and for how much?
sleepntrip shows only rooms in Catania that meet nine conditions: a good location, high guest scores, cleanliness, and a price of up to $80 a night for two. Pick your dates and see what is free.
Looking for a hotel in Catania for your dates?
Only rooms that meet nine conditions, up to $80 a night.