Julie and I arrived at our first apartment in Catania a bit harried by the drive. We got lost, of course, coming from the airport to the flat and had to be rescued by a security guard at a grocery store and the father of our host. We made it, but had no time on the first day to explore.
We made up for it on the next two days. Here are some results of what we found.
Vincenzo Bellini, a classical music composer, was born in Catania. He is a favorite son. Here I am at a statue honoring him. We discovered the other side of the garden with the picture of Julie I have already posted is the garden honoring Bellini. It is a couple of city blocks wide with lots of places for children to play, people to run, and us old folks to sit in the sun.
On the walk on the second day, we happened to pass the Instituto Nationale di Geofisica Vulcanologia, the Catania office. That was a find for someone supposed to be writing a book about volcanoes!
My phone did not accept the Italian SIM card and I gave it to Julie for her phone, and so I was without a SIM card for part of our exploration of Catania. The following pictures are all from Julie’s phone.
Buildings in the old section of Catania, including the Duomo (lower picture). We also caught the end of the fish market (supposed to be the biggest and best in Italy) as they were cleaning up.
Finally, we took a bus tour to see more of the city since we hadn’t had much time. It took us up the coast a short ways. We saw these stone “cyclops” protecting the shore that the commentary on the bus claimed inspired Homer while he was writing Odysseus.
The ruins on the right are the leftover ruins of a Roman fort, plus what was built up in later years.
On Saturday afternoon we are moving to Motta Camastra. It is a wonderful place to take pictures and to make you wish you were here, too. So I’ll post more pictures tomorrow.
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