Things to Do in Catania

Catania is rebuilt in black lava stone from the 1693 earthquake, part of the same baroque wave that shaped Noto and Ragusa, with Piazza del Duomo and the fish market (la Pescheria) — genuinely loud and worth seeing at 7am, not at noon — as the two obvious stops. It's also the usual base for reaching Etna, about an hour's drive up to Rifugio Sapienza, so most itineraries combine a morning in the city with a volcano trip on a different day. Street food here — arancini, especially — is taken seriously rather than sold as a tourist add-on.