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CATANIA |
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First impressions don't do much at all for CATANIA , on an initial
encounter possibly the island's gloomiest spot. Built from black-grey
volcanic stone, its central streets can feel suffocating, dark with the
shadows of grimy, high Baroque churches and palazzi ; and the presence
of Etna dominates everywhere, in the buildings, in the brooding vistas
you get of the mountain at the end of Catania's streets - even the
city's main street is named after the volcano.
Yet fight the urge to change buses and run: Catania is one of the most
intriguing, and historic, of Sicily's cities. Some of the island's first
Greek colonists settled the site as early as 729 BC, becoming so
influential that their laws were eventually adopted by all the Ionian
colonies of Magna Graecia. Later, a series of natural disasters helped
shape the city as it appears today: Etna erupted in 1669, engulfing the
city, the lava swamping the harbour, which was then topped by an
earthquake in 1693 that devastated the whole of southeastern Sicily. The
swift rebuilding was on a grand scale, and making full use of the local
building material, Giovanni Vaccarini, the eighteenth-century architect,
gave the city a lofty, noble air. Despite the neglect of many of the
churches and the disintegrating, grey mansions, there's still interest
in what, at first, might seem intimidating. Delving about throws up
lava-encrusted Roman relics, surviving alongside some of the finest
Baroque work on the island
The City
Catania's main square, Piazza del Duomo , is a handy orientation point
and a stop for most city buses: Via Etnea steams off north, lined with
the city's most fashionable shops and cafés; fish market and port lie
behind to the south; train station to the east; the best of the Baroque
quarter to the west.
It's also one of Sicily's most attractive city squares, rebuilt
completely in the first half of the eighteenth century by Vaccarini and
surrounded with fine Baroque structures. Most striking of these is the
Municipio on the northern side of the piazza, finished in 1741, though
to admire it properly you'll have to gain the central reserve of the
piazza. Here, the elephant fountain is the city's symbol, the eighteenth-century
lava elephant supporting an Egyptian obelisk on its back.
Cross back for the Duomo (daily 8am-noon & 5-8pm) on the piazza's
eastern flank. Apart from the marvellous volcanic-rock medieval apses (seen
through the gate at Via Vittorio Emanuele 159), this was pretty much
entirely remodelled by Vaccarini, whose heavy Baroque touch is readily
apparent from the imposing facade on which he tagged granite columns
from Catania's Roman amphitheatre . The interior is no less grand:
adorned by a rich series of chapels, notably the Cappella di Sant'Agata
to the right of the choir, which conceals the relics paraded through the
city on the saint's festival days.
Nearby is Catania's open-air market , a noisome affair with slabs and
buckets full of twitching fish, eels and shellfish and endless lanes
full of vegetable and fruit stalls, as well as one or two excellent
lunchtime trattorias. The roads wind through a pretty dilapidated
neighbourhood to an open space punctured by the Castello Ursino , once
the proud fortress of Frederick II. Originally the castle stood on a
rocky cliff, over the beach, but following the 1669 eruption, which
reclaimed this entire area from the sea, all that remains is the
blackened keep. The Museo Cívico (Tues-Sat 9am-1pm & 3-6pm, Sun 9am-1pm;
free) is housed inside, its central chambers hung with retrieved mosaic
fragments, stone inscriptions and tombstones, while other rooms hold an
extraordinarily delightful range of items, including a Greek terracotta
statuette of two goddesses being pulled in a sea carriage by mythical
beasts and a seventeenth-century French pistol, inlaid in silver and
depicting rabbits, fish and cherubs.
Back towards the centre, dingy Piazza Mazzini heralds perhaps the most
interesting section of the city. Everything close by is big and Baroque,
and Via Crocíferi - which strikes north from the main road, under an
arch - is lined with some of the most arresting religious and secular
examples, best seen on a slow amble, peering in the eighteenth-century
courtyards and churches. At the bottom of the narrow street, the house
where the composer Vincenzo Bellini was born in 1801 now houses the
Museo Belliniano (Mon-Fri 9am-1.30pm, Sun 9am-12.30pm; free), an
agreeable collection of photographs, original scores and other
memorabilia. A local boy, Bellini notches up several tributes around the
city, including a piazza, theatre and park named after him, a berth in
the duomo and the ultimate accolade, spaghetti Norma . Cooked with
tomato, ricotta and aubergine sauce, and named after one of Bellini's
operas, it's a Catanian speciality.
West from here, the Teatro Romano (Mon-Sat 9am-1pm & 3-7pm, Sun 9am-2pm;
L4000/¬2.07) was built of lava in the second century AD on the site of
an earlier Greek theatre, and much of the seating and the underground
passageways are preserved, though all the marble which originally
covered it has disappeared. Further west, down Via Teatro Greco, the
pretty crescent of Piazza Dante stares out over the unfinished facade of
San Nicolò , the biggest church in Sicily, stark and empty of detail
both outside and in following its partial eighteenth-century restoration.
The builders are in again now, but there's usually someone around in the
early morning to show you the echoing interior - virtually undecorated
save for a meridian line drawn across the floor of the transept. The
church is part of the adjoining convent , also under restoration and, in
terms of size at least, equally impressive.
Nearby, a few minutes' walk north, the little twelfth-century church of
Sant'Agata al Cárcere (Tues-Sat 4-7pm, Sun 9.30am-noon), with its strong
defensive walls, couldn't be less roomy. It was built on the site of the
prison where St Agatha was confined before her martyrdom, and a
custodian lets you into the third-century crypt - now bright with
electric candles. From here, you drop down into Piazza Stesicoro , the
enormous square that marks the modern centre of Catania, one half of
which is almost entirely occupied by the closed-off, sunken, black
remains of Catania's Anfiteatro Romano , dating back to the second or
third century AD. In its heyday, the amphitheatre could hold around
16,000 spectators, and from the church steps above you can see the
seating quite clearly, supported by long vaults.
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