Pictures HERE
4:15pm: back at the b&b for a little rest since I had a full morning and afternoon. After breakfast I went over to the Bellini opera house. It is beautiful but kind of strangely built into its surroundings. Unfortunately it looks like it is not open for public tours or visits, despite conflicting information out there. Then I went over to another Benedictine church that was closed yesterday. They gave you a little tablet with headphones for a free walking tour. Pretty neat but I do not have the patience to listen to five minutes about each part of the fresco, sorry. If I had listened to the whole thing I might have been in that fairly small church for almost an hour! Also went over to the Castle, which now houses the city's museum.
Walked back through the fish market again a little, because it is just so cool, and got a couple of cookies at a pastry shop by the Duomo. It is funny, I would never eat a meal from a place on a main square but that seems to be the best place sometimes for a gelato or pastry. Anyway, one was an almond paste cookie covered in pistachios and the other was a chocolate shortbread filled with pistachio cream. There are either almonds or pistachios in everything here, I feel really badly for someone allergic to tree nuts in Sicily!
Then I started walking up the main shopping street, Via Etna - called that because at the end you can see the Volcano. I meandered and found another market, La Fiera, this one is just as chaotic as the fish market and is half produce, half crap like clothes. What great fun! I had read about this trendy sandwich/burger place called FUD and it was near up where I was, so I went there for lunch. They have funny Italian-english transliterations of everything, like "Stil Ouater" for the water bottles and "cis" for cheese. I had a "classic" - prosciutto, mozzarella, tomato, olive oil, and oregano on a homemade roll. Classic indeed except everything was sicilian. With a glass of rose sparkling wine. Great place and not horribly expensive given its trendiness! They have a tapas restaurant too but I am not going to trek back up there later to go to it.
After lunch I made it up to the Bellini garden, which is a big public park, and then past that a little there is the university's botanical garden, which has a large section dedicated to preserving Sicilian plants. The entrance is free and I was talking to the guy at the info desk and he seemed impressed by my Italian. One thing I have noticed in Sicily more than other parts of Italy is that they respect more here if you try to speak Italian. In Venice or Rome or Milan one you mis-pronounce the Italian they just respodn in English and here they usually do not. I love that!
Anyway, meandered back down the mile or so on Via Etna and stopped for another cup at Cioccolato & Gelato, this time coffee plus their pistachio ottoveli. Still not sure what ottoveli is but I googled it and the only real matches are this shop so maybe they made it up? Then I came back to the b&b to rest up before going back out later. Which is good because by 4pm I had already walked well over 20,000 steps. Yikes!
9:45pm: back at the b&b after dinner. Set out around 6pm and wandered the area around the opera house a bit. Found a cool glass shop where the owner makes everything and bought a necklace and bowl. There was also a cool little square that had been decorated with art. In fact there are a lot of bars and weed places and hipster things in general in Catania it seems.
Had dinner at De Fiore, run by an old lady who cooks everything whom you can hear yelling in the kitchen from the dining area. I had read the service was slow but there was only one poor waiter for everyone and you could tell it was going to be a long night for him. Anyway, I had a quarter liter of wine and the famous pasta alla norma, which was apparently invented in Catania. It is pasta with tomato sauce and fried eggplant. I do not even normally like eggplant, but in Italy it doesn't bother me at all, I wonder why! I also tried to order her famous zeppole for dessert but they were apparently out of pretty much everything. So I paid my little 9 euros and went back to the square of the opera house and got a gelato. They had setteveli, not ottoveli. And setteveli is apparently a well-known multilayer dessert and the other place must add one more thing to make theirs 8 instead of 7! Anyway, I had that with an extra dark chocolate and ate it overlooking the beautiful opera house.
And then it was a quick walk back to the b&b to pack up since I have to get out early tomorrow to make another 8am bus, this time to Agrigento for a night to see the Greek temples!
Side comment - all the sights I paid to go into today were literally basically empty. It really baffles me why no one is going into these museums?
Side comment - all the sights I paid to go into today were literally basically empty. It really baffles me why no one is going into these museums?
Walked a ton today and my feet are starting to feel it. 29,324 steps; 11.66 miles.
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