Introduction to Mafialand

I had booked a free walking tour of Catania for 1000 so we left the hotel in our car around 0900.  The phone satnav’s route to the city wasn’t straight forward but that might be the nature of the city.  We found a parking spot relatively easily near the University Square where we would start.

The guides were good and explained various aspects of life and history in Sicily in particular Catania.  This corner had early days as a Greek outpost rather than Roman.  It has been at the mercy of Mt Etna and has been destroyed in the past by lava flows.  Tthe solidified lava rocks was something we would encounter out of town but many buildings and piazza floors utilise the strong black stone.

Of particular interest was the fish market and the other markets around it.  We also saw elephants in on many public buildings and that is the symbol of Catania (because of its association with longevity).  We finished up at the Coliseum where we hastily hurried back to our car as it coincided with the end of our paid parking period.

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From town, we drove to Mt Etna in our car, stopping in a town for a light lunch of the most gorgeous pastries.  Continuing uphill, we arrived at Rifugio Sapienza which was the starting point of the cable car ride up the mountain.

There wasn’t a queue to get on the very long ride.  The mountain side was like scoria so it wasn’t particularly beautiful except for the scenery.  At the upper terminal, there were large off-road vehicles to the summit.  We considered taking it but it was pricey (about the same as the cable car ride).  We asked some disembarking passengers and they said “It’s more of the same but it is cold and windy”.  I asked if there was anything interesting in the crater eg. smoke, water etc but they said “No”.  That answered it for us … we wouldn’t go.  I have seen beautiful acid lakes, puffing craters and lava shooting up already in various parts of the world.  This would be pretty lame in comparison.

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Kim and I discussed how we would spend the rest of the day.  It was only mid-afternoon and I wanted to go to Taormina during our stay.  I wanted to make sure it wouldn’t be too much driving for him but he was OK, so we made our way through many tunnels and then some ridiculously windy roads to arrive at Taormina.

Taormina is on an elevated spot north of Catania.  Parking was difficult so we kept climbing and climbing until we got to a fortification referred to as Eagle’s Nest by a friend.  The road seemed to continue to a much higher town called Castelmola but we thought we had had enough of dangerous roads for the day.

We climbed up part way to the Eagle’s Nest but the gate was locked.  We took a look at the nearby chapel of Santuario Madonna della Rocca, before driving down the incredibly windy road to sea level.

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The road along the coast to the on-ramp for the southbound motorway was backed up for a long distance.  We decided it would be faster to turnaround and drive north to another on-ramp and that was a wise move.

It was getting dark and we needed dinner.  Even the city centre of Catania wasn’t touristy so out in our suburb, there was little in terms of eateries and takeaways.  We finally found one but it wasn’t open till later and the prices were in Italian Liras!  We went to a supermarket nearby to get a few essentials and ended up having a whole small chicken with a few bits and pieces for dinner.

I wasn’t hungry all day but there was a little too much food.  But we finished it all.  I had been bloated all day but the food seemed to settle my tummy.