Stone upon stone: an Italian sojourn: Grubby elegant Catania

We took a bus from Syracuse to Catania. To get to it we took our trusty little Line 1 minbus from Ortigia across the bridge to the mainland Bus Terminal where we picked up tickets for the princely sum of €5.30 a piece for the trip, which was mostly by motorway, and mostly uninteresting. If there were motorways when we had the car we avoided them. We like to get up close and personal with the landowners and this bus took the speedy route. We were collected by our apartment lady and brought to our bijou apartment that is so central: it opens to one of the main piazza's in Catania: where the home town hero, Vincenzo Bellini's operas play. We missed seeing a performance by one night, which was a bit of bad timing on our part.

We unpacked quickly and took to the streets and as we were orienting ourselves a tour bus filled with Russian students stopped, invited us on board for a 1 1/2 hr tour for €15 Euro and we fell for it, having nothing yet planned. Duh. Took us half an hour up the coast, and occasionally explained a few things that we could have read just as easily on a local €1 bus with Triposa open, and returned the same route. Still, it quickly showed us that Catania was not "the dump" that a couple from Malta had warned us about just a few days before in Ragusa. The northern beaches, as far as we drove, were filled with relatively smart high rise apartment blocks close to the centre, then what looked to be quite smart stuccoed second homes, or beach houses, further up.

Set back from the shore bolstered by giant carved blocks of lava, barricading the Mediterranean. This lava we explored more the next day.

Catania sits under Mount Etna. You can see the smoking mountain from many of its streets. Catania has its very foundations dug deep into lava that has solidified after each and every eruption. You cannot escape the lava in Catania.

And the colour of solidified lava is black. So, much of Catania is black, unremitting black, making it one of the most unique cities on the planet. But wherever it is offset with Syracuse light limestone it is quite beautiful.

To that mix, over many centuries, much of Catania has been destroyed by earthquake, by eruption, so a rebuilding program starting in the 18th century that saw much of Catania architecture embrace the Baroque vogue. So, a lot of the Centro Storico is ornate. Crumbling today, because it has not been carefully looked after, but the city has beautiful bones, beautiful spaces, beautiful piazzas, beautiful proportions.

And a church on every street corner. Too many. We stopped even entering them, there were so many. Most riddled with very poor graffiti. Here, it is far from street art, or ascerbic political commentary: it looks like bored youth scribbling on lava rock with spray cans: because they can.

No one penalises them if they do. There are very few places graffiti free. But those that are stand out. Some with so much colour the graffiti mafia cannot match it. Others so elegant they dare not. Plus the carabinieri are always close by these parts.

And in the midst of all the black lava and graffiti we found this atmospheric Catania fish market --and it was wonderful. Here we had a delicious market treat of swordfish, shrimp, cuttlefish and squid that was so divine -- we then chose fish, again, for our dinner, from a man wielding a knife as big as a machete, with as much precision and style as a Japanese sushi carver.

We passed up on the silvery anchovies.

But ended up with a bounty of fresh cut parsley from the arms of a born Sicilian showman.

After which we indulged in an aperitif at an elegant street cafe, before heading home. Impressed by this grubby but shabbily beautiful city, that just needs a lot of love, care and attention to be at her very best, once again.