Most of the group departed for home or continued travels, but we still had two nights in Catania. One night at the same hotel, the second night in a 19th century noble palace with a small balcony overlooking the Via Etnea. We took a hop-on, hop-off bus along the coast to the town of Aci Castello and its Norman castle. Sitting on a volcanic outcrop, this castle was built in 1076 on the foundations of a 7th century Byzantine fortification. Unfortunately, we got there just at siesta time and the castle was closing! Back in Catania, we found a Roman theater tucked behind an unassuming metal door on one of the streets a few blocks off the city’s main square. Consisting of the ruins of two open-air semicircular theaters, the site was built in the second century AD and only fully excavated in the 19th century. Other buildings were built on and around it, making for an interesting combination of ancient and modern structures crammed together in the middle of the city. That last night, we enjoyed a bottle of Benati Sicilian wine on the balcony, eating cold pizza and watching a random parade on the Via Etnea below.

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We were flying out of Palermo, so had to take a public bus to Palermo that took 3+ hours across the middle of the island, with not much to see. We can understand why the population of the island largely sticks to the coasts. The final meal in Palermo was at the same restaurant where we ate dinner the first day, providing an apt bookend to our Sicilian adventure.