The chief wonder about Catania is the fact that it is there at all [Fodor Modern Guides – New York 1954].

By this sentence an Americam travel guide introduces Catania, considering its greater wonder the very fact that it exists. This phrase does not take cont of a a key factor, the people of Catania who, tenacious and patient as the elephant, symbol of the city, as is proudly remembered by the motto Melior de Cinere Surgo, engraved on Porta Garibaldi.

However, despite the destruction who have marked the history of Catania, the oldest traces of its millenary existence continue to live under our feet, a kind of parallel city which takes place under the magnificent baroque reconstruction, constituting the biggest surprise that Catania can offer to the modern visitor.

Catania is the Roman city with sumptuous domus and vast thermal complex decorated with stucco. Also traces remain even large theater buildings, shrines, fountains and aqueducts.
The traces of places of worship linked to the city’s patron saints, Agata and Euplio.
It is the medieval and modern city that was submerged by the eruption of 1669 that for three months girded Catania fire, and under the rubble of the devastating earthquake of 1693.

A complex historical stratification in an ideal route that starts from the Montevergine hill allows us to reconstruct the entire history of the city, a little-known route.

In the underground Catania is the main river of the city: Amenano, that before to break into“Acqua o’ linzolu”, flows through a mysterious path, hidden from diterra layers that have covered it in the course of centuries. The path of the river can be reconstructed following the traces of the Roman Age baths.
Catania thus multifaceted city, to explore and experience, above and below ground.