Adventures in Catania

Catania is one city we’d never been to before in Sicily. It’s the largest city on the island with half a million people in population. Our tour bus visited the nearby town of Acireale, where there’s a Norman castle and the rocks where Polyphemus the Cyclops threw stones at a departing Ulysees, according to Homer. Back in Catania itself we visited the Duomo, or Cathedral, an 18th century structure where the most famous native son, the great composer Vincenzo Bellini, is buried. We also walked to the nearby church of Sant’Agata, a Baroque gem, and the Teatro Bellini, an ornate opera house that was built in 1890. Catania is mostly an 18th century (and later) city since the nearby volcano Mt.Etna destroyed the city so many times.-Dan