Catania

Saturday 5th April 2025

The sleeper train was really good, but tight in the compartment but I loved it. Didn’t get much sleep, only when we were waiting to get in the ferry and sail over! 330am so didn’t get up. The sunrise in the morning was amazing!

It was 8am so we dropped our bags at the hotel and took a wonder around the city before our tour at 1030. We found the fish market which was very large and very busy! First time I have seen sea urchins ready to eat, they looked really pretty but we were not tempted! There were also meat stalls with whole skinned lambs hung up, I didn’t take a photo of them!

The man who led our tour was a lecturer at the university and a geologist at heart. He kept whipping out maps from his bag to show us tectonic plates and mountain ranges! Several interesting things about Sicily, it has over 1600km of coastline, as he said it’s easy to capture but very hard to hold. As the Greeks, Romans etc found out. In 1669 there was an enormous earthquake about 7.3 Richter scale and most of Catania was levelled. 17000 of 20000 inhabitants died. Some of the old Romans and Greek theatres and baths are still there but most was lost. Then 30 years later mount Etna erupted and brought a wave of lava down the west side of Catania. 20 metres high and 3 miles wide! After all that the city was rebuilt in the rubble and the lava.

It explains why the streets are so wide and there are squares every 300m, so that if there is another earthquake people have somewhere to run to. Also most buildings are only 4 stories high. It’s very different to Naples!! We saw the cathedral, the castle which was almost buried in lava, a street of 5 enormous church’s as all the church orders rushed to rebuild the biggest and best after the earthquake! My feet were tired by the end though so we went and had lunch!

Our tour guide had recommended somewhere in the fish market so we went there and it was delicious Back to the hotel and to find a laundromat! We have been handwashing clothes but every now and then it’s good to get everything washed properly!!