Catania travel guide

Top 10 sights in Catania

Ranked by Wikipedia language editions — proven fame.

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   1© Berthold Werner · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Catania Cathedral

   A cathedral to St Agatha, the city's patron, whose relics are carried through the streets each February in a festival that stops Catania for three days. The building is Norman in origin and baroque above, rebuilt after the 1693 earthquake that levelled the city.

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   2© Maurizio Moro5153 · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Castello Ursino

   A castle of the 1230s built for Frederick II on what was then a coastal cliff, until the lava flow of 1669 filled the sea around it and left it inland. The Sicilian parliament sat in it after the Vespers of 1282; it now holds the civic museum.

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   Acireale Cathedral

   The cathedral of Acireale north of Catania, dedicated to the Annunciation, with two conical spires and a marbled baroque front. It became a cathedral in 1870 and a minor basilica in 1957, and the town's carnival floats pass in front of it.

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   4© Carlo Pelagalli · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Basilica della Collegiata

   A church finished in 1794 whose curved front and columned upper storey are the clearest piece of Sicilian baroque in the main street. It was the royal chapel of the city and is dedicated to Our Lady of the Alms.

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   Monastery of San Nicolò l'Arena

   A Benedictine monastery so large that only Mafra in Portugal rivals it in Europe, rebuilt after both the 1669 lava flow and the 1693 earthquake — the lower floors are literally built on solidified lava. The university's humanities faculty uses it now, and it is World Heritage.

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   6© Lucarelli · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Elephant Fountain

   A fountain of the 1730s in the cathedral square carrying a black basalt elephant, probably Roman, on which the city has hung an Egyptian obelisk. Catanians call the elephant Liotru and treat it as the city's protector against Etna.

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7. 

   7© Effems · CC BY-SA 4.0

   San Benedetto, Catania

   A Benedictine convent church rebuilt after 1693, whose entrance is reached by a marble staircase so densely carved that Catanians call it the angels' stair. The nuns' choir behind a grille runs the length of the interior.

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8. 

   8© User:Matthias Süßen · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Roman Theatre of Catania

   A Roman theatre in black lava blocks under the middle of the old city, with later houses built directly on top of the seating so that lanes run between the tiers. Water still seeps through the orchestra from an underground river.

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   9© Effems · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Badia di Sant'Agata

   A convent church of the 1730s by Giovanni Battista Vaccarini, whose dome can be climbed for the closest view of the cathedral square and Etna together. Its curved facade is squeezed into the main street with no room to stand back from it.

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    10© DMarx22 · CC BY-SA 4.0

    Palazzo Biscari

    An eighteenth-century noble palace built on top of the city wall so that its rooms open to the sea, and the most extravagant interior in Catania — a ballroom encrusted with shells and scrollwork under a painted dome, entered by a spiral stair.

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1. 

   1© Berthold Werner · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Roman amphitheatre of Catania

   A Roman amphitheatre of the second century in black lava stone, which held something over ten thousand people. Most of it lies under the modern square and streets; one excavated corner is open, and the scale has to be imagined from it.

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   2© Dariolp83 · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Piazza del Duomo

   The main square, rebuilt after the 1693 earthquake as a single composition in white limestone and black lava. The elephant fountain stands in the middle, the cathedral on one side and the city hall on another, and all of it is World Heritage.

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   3© gnuckx · CC BY 2.0

   Castello Normanno

   A castle of the thirteenth century on a black lava crag directly above the sea at Aci Castello, north of the city. The 1169 and 1669 eruptions reshaped the coast around it; the basalt stacks offshore are the rocks Homer's Cyclops threw at Odysseus.

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   4© No machine-readable author provided. Urban~commonswiki assumed (based on copyrig · CC BY-SA 3.0

   San Nicolò l'Arena

   The largest church in Sicily, begun in 1687 and never finished — the front stands as a row of bare column stumps because the money ran out. Inside, a meridian line is set into the floor with the signs of the zodiac, used to fix noon in the 1840s.

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   Porta Giuseppe Garibaldi

   A city gate of 1768 built for a Bourbon royal wedding, in alternating bands of white limestone and black lava that make it look striped from a distance. It closes the western end of the market street.

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   Palazzo degli Elefanti

   The city hall on the cathedral square, designed by Vaccarini after the earthquake and named after the elephant fountain in front of it. The carriages used in the St Agatha festival are kept in its courtyard.

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   7© Berthold Werner · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Palazzo dell'Università

   The main building of the University of Catania, founded in 1434 and the oldest in Sicily, rebuilt in the eighteenth century after the earthquake. Its courtyard and staircase are by Vaccarini, who effectively designed the whole rebuilt city.

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   8© The original uploader was Triquetra at Italian Wikipedia. · CC BY-SA 2.5

   Basilica of Our Lady of Mount Carmel

   A Carmelite church on Piazza Carlo Alberto, rebuilt after 1693 like everything else in Catania, and a Marian sanctuary. The city's largest open market spreads round it every morning, which is the better reason to be there.

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   9© Carlo Pelagalli · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Palazzo Manganelli, Catania

   An eighteenth-century noble palace on the rebuilt main street, whose courtyard and staircase show how the Catanian aristocracy lived after the earthquake — a formal front to the street and gardens hidden behind.

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    church of San Biagio

    A neoclassical parish church on the edge of Piazza Stesicoro, built over the furnace where St Agatha is said to have been tortured — hence its older name. The excavated Roman amphitheatre lies immediately beside it, so two eras share one square.

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