Wanderlines
The baroque domes of Catania above the rooftops, with the sea beyond
Italy · Sicily · Under the volcano

Catania

A black-and-white baroque city built from the lava that destroyed it, with Europe's most active volcano smoking at the end of the main street, the loudest fish market in Italy, the best granita on the island and a wine region on the slopes that the world has only just noticed.

Jump to EtnaWhere to eat
Photo via Pexels
Overview

The city Etna keeps rebuilding

Catania has been buried by lava in 1669 and flattened by an earthquake in 1693, and the city that stands today is the one rebuilt after both: a grid of wide baroque streets in dark lava stone trimmed with white limestone, a World Heritage site shared with the other late-baroque towns of the Val di Noto. Via Etnea runs three kilometres dead straight from the cathedral square towards the volcano, which fills the end of the street on a clear morning, snow-capped from November to May and often trailing a plume. Behind the Duomo, the Pescheria shouts its prices over swordfish heads and sea urchins from seven in the morning.

It is Sicily's second city and its liveliest: a university of 40,000, a nightlife that runs to four in the morning, a street-food culture of arancini, horse-meat grills and granita for breakfast, and a tourist tide that mostly passes through on the way to Taormina and Syracuse, both an hour away. Etna is the reason to stay longer. The volcano had its most active year in decades in 2026, with summit eruptions through the summer that closed the craters and briefly the airport, and the rules for climbing it have tightened: a guide above about 2,500 metres, groups of ten, 200 metres from any lava.

Three days covers the centre, the market, a day on Etna and a night out. Five adds Taormina and the Cyclops coast, or Syracuse and Noto. A week adds the wine villages on the north slope, which deserve a night of their own.

Mount Etna looming over the rooftops of Catania
The baroque centrePiazza del Duomo and the elephant, the Pescheria, Via Etnea, Via dei Crociferi, the Benedictine monastery and the Roman theatre.
The night streetsPiazza Teatro Massimo, Via Gemmellaro and Piazza Scammacca, the Alessi steps, Via Santa Filomena and the horse-meat grills of Via Plebiscito.
EtnaRifugio Sapienza and the cable car on the south side; Piano Provenzana and the wine villages on the north; the Circumetnea railway round the back.
The coastAci Castello and Aci Trezza's Cyclops rocks, Acireale's cliffs, Taormina and Isola Bella to the north, La Playa's sand to the south, Syracuse beyond.
Highlights

What to see first

Nine places. The centre is walkable in a day; Etna, the Cyclops coast and Taormina each want a day of their own.

The elephant fountain with its obelisk in Catania's cathedral square
Centre · Free

Piazza del Duomo and the elephant

The city's living room: a square of black lava and white limestone with the cathedral of Sant'Agata, rebuilt after 1693 behind a Vaccarini façade and holding the saint's relics, and in the middle u Liotru, the lava-stone elephant of uncertain age carrying an Egyptian obelisk on its back since 1736, which Catania has adopted as its emblem. The Amenano fountain in the corner marks the underground river that runs beneath the city; Porta Uzeda leads to the sea and the fish market below. Come at eight, when the market is loud and the square is still cool.

Piazza del Duomo in detail →
A display of fresh seafood at a street market in Catania
Mon–Sat mornings · Behind the Duomo

La Pescheria

The fish market spills down the steps from the Amenano fountain into a sunken piazza and the lanes around it: swordfish heads on marble slabs, tuna in slices, sea urchins opened to order, anchovies and mussels, fishmongers chanting prices, and around the edges the butchers, cheese stalls, olive sellers and the fry stands that turn the morning's catch into a paper cone. Busiest from eight to eleven, closed Sundays. The trattorias inside the market, in the food section, are the right lunch, and Scirocco's fish lab does the cone.

La Pescheria in detail →
The baroque façade of a cathedral in Catania under a blue sky
UNESCO · Walk

Via Etnea and Via dei Crociferi

Via Etnea is the spine, three kilometres of palazzi, shops and cafés from the Duomo past Piazza Università and the Collegiata church to Villa Bellini, with the volcano framed at the end. Via dei Crociferi, a block west, is the baroque street itself: four churches and a convent in two hundred metres, San Benedetto with its Angels' Staircase and the arch of the Badia Piccola over the road, San Francesco Borgia and San Giuliano, whose roof loggia opens for the view. The Roman amphitheatre of Piazza Stesicoro, half under the street, is on the way.

Via Etnea and the Crociferi in detail →
Panoramic view of the Catania skyline with its domes
UNESCO · Guided tours, about €10

The Benedictine monastery of San Nicolò l'Arena

The second-largest Benedictine monastery in Europe, where the monks lived like princes until the state took it in 1866, is now the university's humanities faculty and the best guided hour in the city: two cloisters, a kitchen built over the 1669 lava flow that stopped at its walls, a Roman house under the floor, the great library and the night tours of its hidden floor. Tours run roughly hourly from nine to five, booked online; the church of San Nicolò beside it is the largest in Sicily, its façade left unfinished for want of money, and the climb to its dome is the panorama.

The Benedictine monastery in detail →
Sunset over the ancient Roman amphitheatre in Catania
Via Vittorio Emanuele · €10 integrated ticket

The Roman theatre and Odeon

A theatre for 7,000 built into the hill in the second century and then built over for 1,500 years, so that houses still stand on its upper tiers and the Amenano river floods the orchestra when it rains. Since June 2026 the archaeological park charges €10, or €5 reduced, for an integrated ticket that adds the Roman baths of the Rotonda and the Indirizzo, with tickets online; the little Odeon next door is in the same complex. The Castello Ursino, Frederick II's castle that the 1669 lava left stranded inland, is closed for restoration until 2027 and can be seen only from outside.

The Roman theatre in detail →
The Bellini garden in Catania with its terraces and palms
Via Etnea · Free garden, tours of the theatre

Villa Bellini and the Teatro Massimo Bellini

Two tributes to the composer born here in 1801. The public garden at the top of Via Etnea climbs through palms, a floral clock and bandstands to a terrace with Etna over the rooftops, the city's promenade since 1883. The opera house of 1890, which opened with his Norma, is a gilded horseshoe with a painted ceiling and a season from October to June; guided tours for a few euros run on days without rehearsals, and the square in front of it is where the evening starts. His birthplace museum is on Piazza San Francesco.

Villa Bellini and the opera in detail →
Aerial view of the summit craters of Mount Etna
1 h by car · Guides above 2,500 m

Mount Etna

Europe's highest active volcano, 3,350 metres and rising with every eruption, a World Heritage site and a national park. From Catania the road climbs to the Rifugio Sapienza at 1,900 metres, where the cable car lifts you to 2,500 for €54 return and a 4x4 bus with a guide takes you to 2,900 for €82; above that only an authorised guide can lead you, in groups of ten, to the summit craters when they are open. Or walk the free 1892 craters by the car park. The 2026 eruptions, the rules and the hikes are in the Etna section below; check the INGV bulletin the day before.

Etna's summit craters in detail →
A castle on a rock above the Sicilian sea
10 km north · Bus or 20 min by car

Aci Castello and Aci Trezza

The Riviera dei Ciclopi: a Norman castle on a black basalt crag above the water at Aci Castello, and two kilometres on, the fishing village of Aci Trezza facing the Faraglioni, the basalt stacks that Homer's Polyphemus hurled at Odysseus and Verga set I Malavoglia beside. The largest, Isola Lachea, is a marine reserve with a university research station; boats circle the rocks for a few euros, the lungomare swims off lava platforms and does granita, and the dive centres are in the scuba section. Acireale and its cliff path are ten minutes further.

Aci Castello and Aci Trezza in detail →
The ancient theatre of Taormina with Mount Etna in the background
1 h by bus or train · Early

Taormina

The resort on the terrace: a Greek theatre of the third century BC rebuilt by the Romans, with the stage open to Etna and the sea in the only view of its kind, €14 to €16 and a stage of summer concerts; Corso Umberto's one street of boutiques and granita bars; the cable car down to Isola Bella, a pebble beach and a nature-reserve islet for €6. It is beautiful and overwhelmed from May to October, and the cruise ships arrive by eleven, so take the first bus, see the theatre at opening and lunch in Castelmola on the crag above instead.

Taormina in detail →

Also worth your time

Day trip · 1 h 15

Syracuse, Ortigia and Noto

Bus or train south; Noto 30 min beyond

The Greek city that rivalled Athens: the Neapolis park with its theatre and the Ear of Dionysius, and the island of Ortigia, where the cathedral is built inside a Doric temple and Caravaggio's Burial of St Lucy hangs in a church by the sea. Noto's honey-coloured baroque corso and Caffè Sicilia's almond granita make the long day.

3–5 February · Book rooms early

The feast of Sant'Agata

Three days and two nights · fixed dates every year

One of the three biggest Catholic festivals on earth: hundreds of thousands in white sacks haul the saint's silver float through the city for nearly 24 hours, the giant candelabra sway down Via Etnea, fireworks go off over the Duomo and the pastry shops sell the breast-shaped minnuzze. The city's whole identity, over three days.

Evenings · Check dates

The Opera dei Pupi

Marionettistica Fratelli Napoli and the small theatres

Sicily's puppet opera, UNESCO-listed, tells the stories of Charlemagne's paladins with armoured marionettes a metre tall; Catania's are bigger and heavier than Palermo's and the fights are louder. The Napoli family have performed since 1921; performances are occasional, so check their calendar.

1 h · Summer

The Alcantara gorge and the Etna wine villages

Motta Camastra; Randazzo, Castiglione di Sicilia, Linguaglossa

A gorge of basalt columns cut by a river cold enough to hurt, waded in hired boots in summer from the free public stairs or the private park. On the way, Randazzo's medieval lava-stone churches and Castiglione's hill town are the gateways to the Etna DOC vineyards in the wine section.

Etna & hikes

The craters with a guide, the 2002 lava fields on foot and a gorge of basalt columns

Etna is a mountain with its own weather, its own rules and, in 2026, its own headlines: a new eruptive phase from June, a fissure in July, ten days in August of fountains and flows the volcanologists compared to the 1970s, the summit closed and the airport shut for hours. The volcano has calmed since, but check the INGV bulletin and the mayors' ordinances on the day, and climb with a guide above 2,500 metres, which is the law.

JFMAMJJASOND

Etna season: teal = the best months for the summit and the lower trails, green = possible, with snow and skiing from December to April above 1,800 metres and heat and haze in July and August lower down. Summit tours usually pause from mid-November to mid-April.

People watching glowing lava on a volcano at night
Demanding · Guide compulsory

The summit craters from Etna Sud

From the Rifugio Sapienza at 1,900 metres the cable car rises to 2,500 and the 4x4 buses grind on to the Torre del Filosofo at about 2,900; from there the volcanological guides lead you on foot across black ash and old flows to the rim of the summit craters, four of them now, steaming, rumbling and sometimes throwing bombs, with Sicily spread out below from the Aeolian islands to Syracuse. The whole thing takes five to six hours, costs €82 for the lifts and about €80 to €130 for the guide, and depends entirely on what the mountain is doing that morning.

3–6 kmon foot from 2,900 m
3–5 hwalking
300–500 mof ascent, at altitude

Rules since January 2026: no one above about 2,500 metres without an authorised guide, groups of ten at most, 200 metres from any lava, no approaching flows after dusk, and whole sectors closed by the mayors at an hour's notice. It is 0 to 10°C up there in summer, with wind, fog and sometimes ash; bring boots, layers, two litres of water and a buff for your mouth. The cable car stops in high wind and when ash falls. Etna Nord, from Piano Provenzana above Linguaglossa, offers the same summit with a quarter of the people.

Silhouettes of hikers walking along a ridge
Moderate · No guide needed

Etna Nord: the 2002 craters and the Monti Sartorius

The quiet side of the mountain. From Piano Provenzana at 1,800 metres, a small ski station among pines and the endemic Etna birch, a track climbs to the fissure and cones of the 2002 eruption, which buried the hotel and the lifts here under a flow you walk across, with the old Hotel Le Betulle's ruins sticking out of it; three hours and 400 metres of climbing, no permit, no guide below 2,500. Down the Mareneve road by the Rifugio Citelli, the Monti Sartorius are a chain of seven cones from 1865 in a birch wood, a flat loop of an hour that children manage and the best easy walk on the volcano.

7 km2002 craters; 3.6 km Sartorius
3 hand 1 h
400 mand 80 m of ascent

A car is the way; the north side has no public transport worth the name. Combine with lunch at a Linguaglossa trattoria and a winery on the way back. In winter Piano Provenzana is the ski area, open to mid-April in 2026, with the sea in the view from every run.

A volcano erupting at night under a starry sky
Moderate

Schiena dell'Asino and the Valle del Bove

The Valle del Bove is the great hole in Etna's eastern flank, a collapse caldera five by seven kilometres that swallows most of the modern lava flows, and the Schiena dell'Asino, the donkey's back, is the ridge on its southern rim. From the road just below the Rifugio Sapienza a path climbs 250 metres in an hour to the edge, where the ground falls away into a black amphitheatre with the fresh flows of 2026 cooling at the bottom and the summit smoking above. The hard version continues over the Montagnola in a 13-kilometre loop with 800 metres of climbing.

Full route guide →
5 kmreturn; 13.6 km the loop
2 hor 5 h
250 mor 800 m of ascent

Free, unguided and the best viewpoint on the south side, as long as the mayor of Milo has not closed the valley, which he did in August 2026. Snow from December to March. The Monte Zoccolaro trail from Zafferana reaches the opposite rim in two hours.

Easy · Nicolosi

The Monti Rossi

From Nicolosi town · 1.5–2 h loop

The twin red cones thrown up by the 1669 eruption whose lava reached Catania and the sea, now a pine wood with a path round both craters and the city and the coast below. All year, and a fine winter walk.

Route guide →
Easy · Acireale

The Timpa and the Chiazzette path

Acireale belvedere to Santa Maria la Scala · 45 min down

A 17th-century stone-paved mule path zigzagging 150 metres down the Timpa, the lava fault scarp above the sea at Acireale, through prickly pear to the fishing hamlet of Santa Maria la Scala and a plate of fried fish. Bus back up, or walk.

Route guide →
Summer · Waders

The Alcantara gorge and Cava Grande

Motta Camastra, 1 h; Avola, 1 h 30 · check openings

The Alcantara's basalt-column canyon is waded in hired boots in 12°C water from June to September. Cava Grande del Cassibile near Syracuse is a steep 300-metre descent to turquoise pools, often closed in summer for fire risk and by numbered entry in other months.

Etna's park is home to porcupines, wildcats, pine martens and foxes, golden eagles on the western slopes, peregrines and eagle owls on the cliffs, and the Etna birch and Etna broom found nowhere else. At the south end of La Playa, the Simeto river mouth reserve is the birding spot, with flamingos, herons, stilts and marsh harriers from September to May. Off Aci Trezza, the Lachea island keeps its own subspecies of wall lizard.
Scuba

Basalt columns, pillow lava and the Cyclops' rocks from underneath

Catania's diving is geology first and fish second. The marine reserve round the Cyclops islands is an underwater lava field of columns, arches and caves with decent small life and modest visibility; it is a good day if you are here, not a reason to come. Taormina's walls to the north are the prettier dive.

A person swimming underwater in deep blue sea
Open Water to Advanced · 10–40 mMay to October

The Isole Ciclopi marine reserve, Aci Trezza

Six kilometres of coast from Capo Mulini to Aci Castello, protected since 1989 and run by the university, with the Faraglioni and Isola Lachea in the middle. Below the stacks the lava that built them stands as basalt columns and pillow lavas, with arches, swim-throughs and walls dropping past 30 metres; octopus, moray eels, scorpionfish, nudibranchs and shoals of damselfish live on them, groupers are coming back inside the no-take zone, and gorgonians and the odd branch of red coral start deeper. Dives inside the reserve go only through the authorised centres in Aci Trezza and Aci Castello.

10–40 mdepth
Open Waterand up
10–20 mvisibility
15–27°Cwater

A guided boat dive with tank and weights costs about €45 to €65, full kit €15 to €25 more, a try-dive €70 to €100 and an Open Water course €400 to €500; sailing-boat dive trips and underwater-scooter dives are sold from Aci Castello in summer. Autumn has the clearest water and the warmest; the dark rock makes every dive feel deeper than it is.

All levels · The pretty one

Taormina: Isola Bella and Capo Sant'Andrea

Dive shops at Mazzarò and Giardini Naxos

Walls with gorgonians at 30 to 40 metres off Capo Taormina, the Grotta Azzurra sea cave, and shallow reefs round the Isola Bella reserve for beginners and snorkellers, in clearer water than Catania's. The dive to pair with the Greek theatre.

Shore dives

Santa Tecla and Santa Maria la Scala

Below the Timpa at Acireale

Lava ledges stepping into the sea at the foot of the cliffs, shore diving and snorkelling from the fishing hamlets with the Chiazzette path above. Simple, cheap and good for a second dive day.

Honest comparison

For the real thing

Ustica, the Egadi and Lampedusa

Sicily's great diving is on its other islands: Ustica's walls and groupers off Palermo, the Egadi reserve off Trapani and Lampedusa's turtles. All are a long day from Catania and a separate trip.

Good food

Arancini shaped like the volcano, granita for breakfast and horse meat after dark

Catania eats in the street and at the counter: pointed arancini and cipolline from the rosticceria, granita and brioche at the bar, swordfish at the market and grilled horse on Via Plebiscito at midnight. It also has a short list of serious kitchens on the city's edge and up the volcano, and Michelin's Bib Gourmand value picks in town and in the wine villages.

Arancini served with tomato sauce and fresh vegetables
Eat this

The rosticceria: arancino, cipollina, cartocciata

In Catania the arancino is masculine and pointed, a cone in honour of Etna, never the round arancina of Palermo, filled with ragù, with ham and béchamel, alla Norma or with pistachio, €2.50 to €3.50 at Savia or Spinella, the two rivals facing each other across Via Etnea by Villa Bellini. Beside them on the counter: cipollina, puff pastry round onion, tomato, ham and mozzarella; cartocciata, a soft stuffed roll; and the iris, a fried brioche full of ricotta. Lunch for €6, standing.

Sicilian cannoli with ricotta cream on a plate
Eat this

Granita, brioche col tuppo and the pastries

Breakfast from May to October is granita, a dense sorbet of almond, pistachio, black mulberry, lemon or coffee with whipped cream, eaten by dipping a warm brioche with a topknot into it, €3 to €5 at Savia, Spinella or Prestipino on the Duomo square. Cannoli are filled to order with sheep's ricotta; the minnuzze di Sant'Agata are small breast-shaped cassate for February; Bronte pistachio goes into everything. From the kiosks on the squares, a seltz limone e sale, soda water with fresh lemon and a pinch of salt, for €2.

A man selling traditional food at a market stall
Eat this

Pasta alla Norma, swordfish and the horse-meat grills

The city's pasta is alla Norma, named for Bellini's opera: tomato, fried aubergine, salted ricotta and basil, €9 to €13 in any trattoria and best at the old family places. From the market come swordfish involtini, spaghetti with sea urchin, marinated anchovies and cuttlefish ink. And after nine o'clock the arrusti e mangia grills of Via Plebiscito and the lanes behind the castle sell horse meat: a panino of polpette di cavallo for €5, a steak plate for €12, chosen at the butcher's counter and grilled in the street.

The best tables

No kitchen in Sicily holds Michelin's top rating and the 2027 guide is announced in mid-November; these are the five that matter around Catania, one in the city, two on the volcano's slopes and two on Taormina's terraces, which close for the winter.

The city's top table

Sapio

Via Messina, Ognina side of the city · Alessandro Ingiulla · dinner, closed some weekdays

Catania's one serious modern restaurant: Ingiulla's tasting menus of Etna produce and Ionian fish, inventive, precise and served without pomp in a small room away from the centre. Three menus from about €130 to €180 before wine, and the sommelier's Etna list is a lesson in itself.

€130–180 · $$$$
Citrus groves · 35 min north

Zash

Archi di Riposto, in a converted palmento · Giuseppe Raciti · dinner

A boutique hotel's restaurant in an old wine press among lemon groves between the volcano and the sea: Raciti's cooking of the slopes and the Riposto fish market, plated with real elegance. The dinner to pair with a wine day on the north side.

€110–150 · $$$$
Etna Nord · Linguaglossa

Shalai

Linguaglossa, in a small hotel · Giovanni Santoro · lunch and dinner

Mountain meets sea in the wine village at the foot of the north slope: Nebrodi black pig, porcini, Bronte pistachio and the day's fish in Santoro's tasting menus, in a palazzo with a few rooms for the night after the Contrade tasting.

€90–130 · $$$
Taormina · April to October

Otto Geleng

Grand Hotel Timeo terrace, above the Greek theatre · Roberto Toro · dinner

A handful of tables on the terrace of Taormina's grandest hotel with the theatre and Etna below, and Toro's Sicilian tasting menus to match the view. The most beautiful dining room on the island, at the island's highest prices, and seasonal.

€190–250 · $$$$
Taormina · Seasonal

Principe Cerami

San Domenico Palace, Four Seasons · Massimo Mantarro · dinner

In the converted Dominican convent that the world now knows from television, Mantarro's refined Sicilian classics, a cloister garden and a terrace over the bay. Jackets, prices to match, and a season from spring to autumn.

€200+ · $$$$

Bib Gourmand: Michelin's value picks

Three in the city and its province, all worth the detour.

Bib Gourmand

Me Cumpari Turiddu

Piazza Turi Ferro, Catania · all day, shop attached

The city's Bib: a modern trattoria and Sicilian grocery with Slow Food leanings, where the pasta alla Norma, the braised meats and the aubergine caponata taste the way the grandmothers meant and the Etna wine list is long. Book at weekends.

€35–50 · $$
Bib Gourmand · New 2026

In Cucina dai Pennisi

Linguaglossa, Etna Nord

The dining room of the historic Pennisi butcher's shop, which means meat: Nebrodi pork, grilled cuts, sausages and mountain cooking at a mountain price, in the village where the Etna Nord road begins.

€30–45 · $$
Bib Gourmand

Veneziano

Randazzo

The long-standing Bib of the north slope: Etna mushrooms in season, lamb and black pig, local cheeses and a cellar of Etna wines, in the lava-stone town at the volcano's foot. The lunch between wineries.

€30–45 · $$

Where locals eat

Inside the Pescheria · Book

Osteria Antica Marina and Mm! Trattoria

Via Pardo 29; Piazza Pardo 34

Two fish houses in the market itself: Antica Marina for raw platters and the day's catch cooked simply at €40 to €55, Mm! in a former butcher's shop for crudo, fried fish and a glass of something fizzy at a little less. The lunch the market was made for.

€30–55 · $$$
Old school

Trattoria del Cavaliere and Trattoria di De Fiore

Via Paternò, near Via Etnea; Via Coppola

The Cavaliere for a cheap, generous Catanese dinner, pistachio pasta and involtini; De Fiore for the slowest, most home-style pasta alla Norma in the city, cooked as it has been for decades and worth the wait. Check both are open the day you want them.

€20–30 · $
Via Etnea · Counter

Savia, Spinella and Prestipino

Via Etnea 300 and 292; Piazza Duomo · from breakfast

The arancino and granita triangle. Savia since 1897 and Spinella across the street, each with its partisans, for the arancino, the cipollina and the morning granita; Prestipino on the Duomo square for the same with the elephant in view.

€3–8 · $
Pescheria street food

Scirocco Sicilian Fish Lab

Piazza Alonzo di Benedetto, at the market · lunch

The market's catch fried to order into a paper cone, sardine beccafico in a bun and fish meatballs for €6 to €12, eaten on the steps with the fishmongers shouting behind you.

€6–12 · $
Via Santa Filomena

FUD Bottega Sicula and the restaurant street

Via Santa Filomena 35 and neighbours · evenings

Burgers of Nebrodi black pig and Ragusano cheese on Sicilian bread at FUD, which started the street, and a dozen bars and kitchens on either side; the easy, lively dinner before the bars of Gemmellaro round the corner.

€12–25 · $$
Wine bar kitchens

A Putia dell'Ostello and Razmataz

Piazza Currò, by the Duomo; Via Montesano, by the Teatro Massimo

A Putia for plates of Sicilian cooking and a deep Etna list above an underground river in a lava cave; Razmataz for aperitivo, cheese boards and wine by the glass at the tables where the evening begins.

€25–40 · $$
Nightlife

Sicily's night city: aperitivo by the opera house, vermouth on Via Gemmellaro and the steps at Nievski

Catania goes out harder than anywhere else on the island. A university town with cheap drinks, warm nights ten months of the year and a centre where the bars stand shoulder to shoulder, it starts with aperitivo at seven, fills the squares by eleven and does not stop until four from Thursday to Saturday. Cocktails cost €6 to €10 and the snacks come free.

The classic square

Piazza Teatro Massimo and Via Montesano

Around the opera house · 7pm to 2am

Tables under the Bellini theatre's façade from Razmataz's wine-bar corner to Afrobar's cocktails and the long bar at Comis, the ice-cream café that stays open past two; the first stop of every Catanese night and the place to watch the whole city pass.

The current strip

Via Gemmellaro, Piazza Scammacca and Via Landolina

East of Via Etnea · busiest Thursday to Saturday

Where the night has moved: Vermut, a tiny vermouth-and-wine bar whose crowd spills across the street, the cocktail rooms of Mezzaparola, La Chiave and Vinicolo, Oliva.co's mixology, Drinkeria and the pubs in between, with Via Santa Filomena's restaurants a block away. Everything within two hundred metres.

Students and steps

Nievski and the Scalinata Alessi

Via Alessi · evenings

The alternative institution: a pub of Etna craft beers and politics at the top of the Alessi steps, which fill with students and bottles on warm weekend nights until the small hours. Cheap, loud, Catanese.

Clubs and summer

Mercati Generali, Zo and the lidi of La Playa

SS192 towards the airport; Le Ciminiere; Viale Kennedy, June to September

The old wholesale market on the airport road is the city's big club, international DJs under the stars in summer; Zo in the former sulphur refinery does concerts, theatre and late nights all year. In summer the lidi along the 18-kilometre beach south of town, Le Capannine and its neighbours, run aperitivo DJ sets and beach parties, and the Ognina seafront fills with bars.

A glass of red wine
Gemmellaro

Vermut

One glass on the street, then the next door.

Close-up of a puppet show
Pupi

Paladins at war

Armour, swords and a narrator who shouts.

The back of a pastel blue vintage car on a Sicilian street
Late

Home at four

Or to the horse-meat grills first.

Wine

Etna: old vines on black sand, 133 named contrade and the island's finest reds

The vineyards on Etna's slopes, between 400 and 1,000 metres on volcanic sand and ash, have become one of the most talked-about wine regions in the world in twenty years. The grapes are the island's own, the vines are often a century old and still on their own roots, and the estates are an hour from the city.

Red wine being poured into a glass

What to drink here

Etna Rosso is Nerello Mascalese, with a little Nerello Cappuccio: pale, perfumed, firm and acid, closer to Burgundy or Barolo than to the heavy Sicilian reds of the past, and better with every year in the bottle. Etna Bianco is Carricante, saline and citrus, and the Bianco Superiore from the village of Milo on the east slope is the island's great white. The contrade, the 133 named plots of the 2011 rules, are Etna's crus: Calderara Sottana, Feudo di Mezzo, Santo Spirito, Guardiola, Sciaranuova, Arcurìa and the rest, mostly on the north slope between Randazzo and Linguaglossa, where the old bush vines stand in lava-stone terraces beside the stone palmenti where the wine was once trodden. Rosato and bottle-fermented sparkling are the new things.

In the city, A Putia dell'Ostello, Razmataz, Vermut and the shop at Me Cumpari Turiddu pour the volcano by the glass for €5 to €8. On the mountain the estates receive by appointment: Benanti at Viagrande, the pioneer, from about €35; Planeta's Sciaranuova at Castiglione, €65 or €95 with lunch; Graci at Passopisciaro from €55; Pietradolce's striking cellar at Solicchiata from €60; Tenuta delle Terre Nere, Passopisciaro, Tornatore, Cottanera, Tenuta di Fessina and Barone di Villagrande at Milo, which has made wine since 1727 and has rooms. Frank Cornelissen and Girolamo Russo, the cult names, rarely open their doors.

North slope · Book ahead

Passopisciaro, Castiglione and Randazzo

1 h 15 from Catania by car · tastings €35–100

The heartland: Graci, Passopisciaro, Tenuta delle Terre Nere, Pietradolce, Planeta and Cottanera within a few kilometres of each other along the SS120, with Veneziano in Randazzo for lunch and Shalai in Linguaglossa for dinner. A driver from Catania costs €100 to €180 a head; do not taste and drive the Mareneve road.

South-east slope · 25 min

Benanti, Murgo and Barone di Villagrande

Viagrande; Santa Venerina; Milo

The near side of the mountain for a half-day: Benanti's historic palmento at Viagrande, Murgo's traditional-method sparkling at Santa Venerina and Villagrande at Milo for the Bianco Superiore, with an agriturismo table under the trees.

April · Randazzo

Le Contrade dell'Etna

Usually a weekend in April; 2026 was 19–20 April

The producers' own fair, more than a hundred Etna wineries pouring the new vintage over two days in Randazzo, started by the late Andrea Franchetti of Passopisciaro and now the event of the Sicilian wine year. The harvest, late by Sicilian standards, runs from late September into October.

Practical notes

Before you go

Getting there

Fontanarossa airport is five kilometres south of the centre and the busiest in Sicily. The Alibus runs every 20 to 25 minutes from before five in the morning to half past midnight for €4, which also covers 90 minutes on the city buses, reaching the station in 15 minutes and Via Etnea soon after; the airport railway halt has regional trains to the central station; a taxi is €25 to €35. Interbus and Etna Trasporti coaches leave the airport for Taormina at €7, Syracuse at €6.20 and Giardini Naxos at €6. Etna's ash closed the airport for hours in July and August 2026; on eruption days check your flight, and know that Comiso and Palermo take the diversions.

Getting around

The centre is flat, compact and walked. City buses cost €1.40 for 90 minutes; the single metro line is useful from the station to Stesicoro on Via Etnea and to Borgo for the Circumetnea railway, the slow narrow-gauge line round the volcano through Bronte and Randazzo to Riposto, weekdays only. One AST bus a day leaves the station for the Rifugio Sapienza at about eight and returns mid-afternoon; otherwise Etna, the north slope and the wine villages need a hired car or a tour. Taormina is an hour by bus from the terminal by the station or 50 minutes by train to the station at sea level and a shuttle up. Avoid driving in the centre: limited-traffic zones, chaotic parking and thefts from cars.

Etna and bookings

  • Etna: no one above about 2,500 m without an authorised guide; groups of ten; 200 m from lava; sectors closed at short notice. Check the INGV-OE bulletin and your guide the day before.
  • Cable car €54 return, €82 with the 4x4 and guide to 2,900 m, as of August 2026; it stops in wind and ashfall.
  • Benedictine monastery tours booked online; Taormina theatre €14–16, closes early on concert days; Isola Bella €6.
  • Tourist tax €3 per person per night in rentals and hostels since February 2026, more in hotels, for the first four nights.

Seasons

  • Apr–Jun, mid-Sep–Oct: 20–28°C, Etna open, the sea warm into October; the best months.
  • Jul–Aug: 35–40°C in the city, beach and nights; the summit was closed by eruptions in August 2026.
  • Nov–Mar: 13–18°C, rain in bursts, snow on Etna from the first weeks of November; skiing at Piano Provenzana, open to mid-April in 2026. Taormina's seasonal hotels and restaurants close.
  • 3–5 February: Sant'Agata; book the city months ahead.

Money and safety

Euros; cards are accepted in most restaurants and bars, cash at the market, the kiosks and the horse grills. Catania is safe for visitors who use ordinary sense: pickpockets work the Pescheria crowds, Via Etnea and the buses, bags get snatched from scooters, and the San Berillo quarter behind the station and the outlying estates of Librino and San Cristoforo are not for a night-time wander. Leave nothing in parked cars. On the mountain, obey the ordinances; the fines for closed zones are real and so are the hazards.

Where to stay

The centro storico between the Duomo, Via dei Crociferi and the Teatro Massimo for first visits, food and the nightlife on your doorstep, noisy at weekends; the palazzi of upper Via Etnea around Villa Bellini for elegance and quiet; Borgo for the metro and the Circumetnea; Ognina and the lungomare for lava-rock swimming and fish restaurants, with a bus into town; Aci Trezza for a seaside base in summer. For wine and hiking, sleep on the mountain, at Zash, Shalai or an agriturismo among the vines of Castiglione or Linguaglossa.

Photography

Photo credits

Photographs on this page are by independent photographers published on Pexels under the free Pexels licence. Click a title to open the original.

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