Catania, Italy

Catania is on the east coast of the island of Sicily and lies at the foot of Mt. Etna. It was founded in the 8th Century and in the 14th century was one of Italy's most important cultural and political centers. In 1434 the first University on Sicily opened in Catania. It has been given the nickname "European Silicon Valley".

There are about 300,000 people living in Catania, and 299,999 of them are HORRIBLE drivers. I literally came within an inch of getting hit by a car. We were crossing (in a crosswalk) and because no one follows any type of traffic laws, this one impatient dude swerved around a car in the intersection (I guess he was tired of waiting), and came right at me. He saw me and slammed on his brakes, stopping about an inch from hitting me. He wasn't going too fast, so I probably would not have been critically hurt, but it definitely would have put a damper on my day. I guess I scared him because I just stood in the street glaring at him like I might rip him out of his car and hurt him or something. Which I didn't. Then, another car started honking at me because I was in the middle of the street, so I guess I glared at him as well because he stopped honking very fast. We continued walking around the town, and not 5 minutes later came across a crowd surrounding a man laying in the street. Yep, you guessed it, hit by a car. Needless to say, I was very careful for the rest of the trip crossing the street and would not even enter an intersection until I had a light and other people were already crossing.

Since the Godfather is my favorite movie, I was stoked to be on Sicily. It would have been great to visit Palermo, but that was not on the agenda. Sicily is known for their desserts called cannoli, so we had some of those and just toured the city on our own. When we got to Castello Ursino, which used to be on the coast, but is now inland due to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, there was a grad student from Canada who was happy to hear others speaking English. We hung out with her for a bit, and she showed us around, then we had a snack and said goodbye to head back to the ship. After Catania, came the big towns, which you will have to check back to see many blogs about. Happy Reformation Day, and Happy Halloween.

The cannoli Sicily is famous for

Looking down the street in Catania

Church

More sculpture and statues on the church

Italian Buildings

With cool statues

Inside the plaza of the elephant

Elephant statue. The elephant is the symbol of Catania

Those are train letters. Jaden LOVES trains, so when I saw them, I had to get his name. Erin is helping the guy find the letters. I am pretty sure Jaden likes it.

A little park where there are 2 statues of headless dudes. I don't know why

The University

This is Bellini, the city's most famous citizen. I guess he wrote music and operas

Outside one of two old Roman theater's we saw

Underneath in the first theater. I guess the stage used to be on top.

Not sure what it says

Broken columns

View of the first theater from the back

Bellini's house museum

Bellini's Piano

Bellini's upright piano

Bellini's phonograph

Bellini's other phonograph

Bellini's opera posters

Bellini's medals

Bellini's artwork

The other, and bigger Roman theater we visited

Looks like the stage is now underwater

The seats

It is right in the center of town, and was actually built over in the late 1800's until someone found something and started tearing houses down

Old Roman or Greek Marble found in the excavations

Didn't eat there

I wonder if this goes with the headless dudes in the park

Castello Ursino

Heading up to the castle

Moat

Pillars

Sculptures

Might be horse stalls?

Up the side

Another look at it

Guard tower

Another look at what might be horse stalls

Art in the castle

It's called an arancini and is rice, tomato sauce and meat that is fried

Inside the arrancini

Me and Dana at the elephant statue (the girl we met at the castle)

A delicacy on the island. (we didn't eat any)

Mt. Etna is back there, but we couldn't see it when we wanted pictures

Looking across the town

The intersection where I almost got hit

Can you see why? NO order. Everyone just goes

Cupcakes at tea back on the ship