Catania, or the quiet splendour of unrushed enchantment
Fontana di Proserpina Catania is not love at first sight. It takes, in fact, several looks, or better say gazes, for her to strike your heart with the first spark of enchantment. I say enchantment, because Catania is not a city of moderate feelings. She is not a city that you can simply like. At least, I can’t. The entrance to Catania is a messy Mediterranean cocktail, memories of African warmth, highways and railways that help assure you are not in the above-Rome Italian regions. One travelling to Catania with the well-established mental image of Italy as “il bel paese” may need some time (and yards into the inner city) for this image to materialise itself. With the shining Ionian on the left and the fearful Etna on the right, the city promises amazement, which is not to be seen as of yet. Further in, a huge monument of Persephone’s abduction by Hades, surrounded by mesmerising fountains, introduces one to the first clue on Catania being a toast between earth and sea. Ev...