{"id":2194,"date":"2015-07-18T12:38:06","date_gmt":"2015-07-18T04:38:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/?p=2194"},"modified":"2019-02-03T15:42:41","modified_gmt":"2019-02-03T07:42:41","slug":"sicily-road-trip-from-palermo-to-catania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/2015\/07\/18\/sicily-road-trip-from-palermo-to-catania\/","title":{"rendered":"Sicily – Road Trip from Palermo to Catania"},"content":{"rendered":"

The scenic route between Palermo and Catania this past April, gave us a chance to enjoy more of Sicily’s rural scenery. Although taking the SS120 was not wholly our\u00a0choice but\u00a0due to\u00a0a landslide that\u00a0damaged the A19 expressway linking the two cities, it nonetheless worked out fine\u00a0for us. We savored the area’s famous fungi over lunch\u00a0at Ristorante\u00a0Veneziano in Randazzo\u00a0near Mt. Etna. And once in Catania, we took a morning walk to its main fish market.<\/p>\n

So it was much longer ride of almost six hours given the diversion to the smaller SS120 road but it also gave us a chance to enjoy some nice scenery en route to a vineyard visit on Mt. Etna (see my prior post on our Cusumano winery visit<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\"View<\/a>
Looking down on the closed A19 motorway<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Before we dropped in on winemaker Cusumano’s Mt. Etna vineyards, we stopped for lunch at a rustic restaurant, Veneziano, in Randazzo with a jolly waiter and some very good simple pasta and grilled meats.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
We had a good lunch here, helped by our jolly waiter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Various<\/a>
One of the standouts was the pasta with Italian wild asparagus<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Fresh<\/a>
A crate of the wild asparagus we had with our pasta<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Fresh<\/a>
Artichokes and peppers at the back of the restaurant<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A<\/a>
We had a platter of grilled meat, lamb and sausages. The best was the lamb.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The drive to Cusumano’s Mt. Etna vineyards yielded more great scenery including some nice views of the peak of the famous volcano.<\/p>\n

\"View<\/a>
View of Mt. Etna from the vineyards on its slopes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Mt.<\/a>
Looking down on the vineyards<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Mt.<\/a>
Black & white photo of trees and rocks on Mt. Etna<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Twilight<\/a>
View of the street outside our hotel with Mt. Etna in the distance<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By the time we reached Catania after our visit to Cusumano’s vineyards, it was dusk and a bit late to do much exploration of the city. But we had a nice drink and relaxing night in our hotel – I highly recommend the UNA Hotel Palace in Catania. I had a nice view of the street outside my room with Mt. Etna in the distance.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately our stay in Catania would be short as we flew\u00a0off to Milan mid-morning for the next leg of our wine tour of Italy. But before we left for the airport, we had a chance to take a walk to the city’s main market, which is just a short 10-15 minute walk from the hotel. Along the way, we passed by some of Catania’s main landmarks including its elephant symbol.<\/p>\n

\"Sunrise<\/a>
The view from our hotel rooftop – sunrise in Catania<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Piazza<\/a>
Catania’s Piazza Universita near the Palazzo degli Elefanti \u00a0in the quiet of the early morning<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Early<\/a>
Newsstand near the Anfiteatro Romano<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We were a bit early when we got to the market so they were still setting up some of the stalls but it was still interesting to see what they had on offer. We still managed to buy some really amazing fresh nuts and hot pepperoncino.<\/p>\n

\"Catania's<\/a>
It was still early so the stalls were still being set up in the market<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Catania's<\/a>
Some of the fish available<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Catania's<\/a>
Men hanging around surveying the scene as the fish market sets up<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"In<\/a>
He sells snails in this tub but is lining the ladle with lemon to prevent the snails from climbing out<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Catania<\/a>
The meat section of the market<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Observing<\/a>
Love his sweater! This man sits and watches the goings on at the Catania market.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

En route back to our hotel, we dropped in on a local cafe for a good cup of coffee. The burly owner of this simple cafe serves some really good toasted pastries including a really good\u00a0ham and cheese one.<\/p>\n

\"This<\/a>
His coffee was one of the best we had and his ham & cheese toasted sandwich-like pastry\u00a0was yummy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Alas, our stay in Catania, and in Sicily, was too short. I definitely plan to return to check out the rest of the province that I’ve been told is really beautiful. If nothing else, the food here is very good and extremely reasonable given access to high quality produce and fresh fish.<\/p>\n

UNA Hotel Palace Catania website<\/strong>:\u00a0http:\/\/www.unahotels.it\/it\/una_hotel_palace\/hotel_palace_catania_landing.htm<\/a><\/p>\n

Ristorante Veneziano website:<\/strong>\u00a0http:\/\/www.ristoranteveneziano.it<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The scenic route between Palermo and Catania this past April, gave us a chance to enjoy more of Sicily’s rural scenery. Although taking the SS120 was not wholly our\u00a0choice but\u00a0due to\u00a0a landslide that\u00a0damaged the A19 expressway linking the two cities, it nonetheless worked out fine\u00a0for us. We savored the area’s famous fungi over lunch\u00a0at Ristorante\u00a0Veneziano […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2212,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[152,19,95,125],"tags":[29,121],"class_list":["post-2194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-italy-europe","category-italy-itinerary","category-italy-romesouthernitaly","tag-italy","tag-sicily","latest_post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2194"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2232,"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2194\/revisions\/2232"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}