Visiting Catania - Italy

Flying to Catania for the long weekend just wanted to know if anyone has some tips.

Cheers,

G.

Catania itself is not exactly one of Italy's prettiest cities. I would recommend the following destinations in the vicinity: Taormina (old resort town on a cliff overlooking the sea, very pretty and with a nice amphitheater), a tour of Etna (the volcano), Siracusa (ancient Greek metropolis with lots of ruins, plus a medieval old town on a small island off the main island). There's more to be seen in Sicily, but distances are not small, so you can't pack in too much if you have just a week-end.

Tom - So if you were to fly there for a 3 day weekend (just cos it is super cheap) in Feb or Mar, would you go to Palermo or Cantania??? And do you think Easter would be an ok time to go or too quite and boring (ie, is everything shut there like it is here?)
Thanks

Are you planning on getting a car, or do you want to rely on public transport? There are train services, but they don't really get you everywhere you want to go. Not sure about organized excursions.

If you have a hotel in Catania, you could e.g. take the train to Taormina (one day), then rent a car for two days to go to Etna (one day) and Siracusa (one day). That'd be about as much as you can manage. Or you could combine Taormina and Etna in one day by car.

Haven't been to Palermo. Heard it's interesting, but not everybody's cup of tea (some people think it's run-down and maybe even dangerous, though the danger probably doesn't go beyond pickpocketing).

Don't expect it to be all that warm. The buildings can be quite chilly and are not well insulated.

Thx for all the information. I will take a look round and see what it is all about. No rental car booked yet.Maybe i will get something locally and drive around for one day.
Weather should be alright but i will make sure to bring some sweater.

Hey Tom,

Thx for the information. You were absolutely right, Catania is not all that much. Taormina was very beautiful and i had a fab weekend there.

G.

Glad you liked it. Must return there myself one day.

Just hoping to revive this thread. Flying to Sicily via Catania for 5 days, and have never been. Anyone have any suggestions for an itinerary? We may rent a car if necessary... Has anyone done this? Is it a long and painful trip to Palermo?

Any tips on restaurants, sights, hotels, etc. appreciated.

Thanks.

well, i think you should eat pizza at the plaza, have good ice cream, chat up a cute italian, leave your friend near a vulcano and talk about the mafia all the time.

I´d also like to revive this thread!

We are planning to go to Catania (altough probably staying in Taormina after reading the posts above)
Any tips on hotels, b&b etc would be really appreciated. Have not had too many good experiences when booking hotels in Italy...(the hotel looked great and it was not so)

Thanks!

So I was waiting for the thread about opening shops on Sunday to be finished to try and revive this thread again, but it looks like the Sunday thread won´t be ever finished so...I will risk:
Anyone out there knows a nice place to stay around Catania/Taormina, etc (140 max per night!)?

Thank you

http://www.villaleclementine.it/homeita.htm

http://www.lamasseriabb.it/english/index.htm

http://catania.agri-turismo.biz/agriturismocatania.htm

The third link is a search engine for the Catania region. The first two were ones we had planned to stay at.
Enjoy! We had planned to go but a friend planned his wedding right in the middle of our trip so we had to postpone. He is now going to Sicily for his honeymoon!!