All I can think of is food

Another cracking day in Catania. We've come to realise that we won't get around to go to all the food places on our list.
How cool would it be to come here for a week literally just as a food tourist? Rent the same great apartment and feast on local cuisine all day. Chill with those great Aetna wines in between.

We made it to La Pescheria this morning around 10am and had a wander around the fish stalls first. My goodness, so much variety. From ginormous whole sword fish to tiny little squids smaller than my thumb. Doesn't get fresher than this. And we didn't even know what kind of fish most were.
Add to that plenty of fruit and veg stalls. Fennel and broccoli seem to be a favourite along with aubergine, zucchini and citrus fruit. We bought some wild strawberries from the slopes of Aetna and some pineapple for our Sicilian breakfast tomorrow morning.
Then headed for the numerous cheese and cured near stalls. Picked up some lovely bresaola and salami along with a choice of local cheeses.
Lots of stalls selling dried herbs, fresh meat (all sorts of intestines are traditional ingredients here), sausages and chicken skewers or huge selections of nuts (especially pistachio).

It was a feast for the eyes and quite inspiring. So we decided to cook tomorrow night getting some fresh seafood and seasonal veg with it.

Picked up some fresh panini for next morning's breakfast as well and dumped our treasure off at home.
Then headed for NonnAnge Cafe for breakfast which was a bit disappointing despite good reviews on Google.

Back to the huge La Fiore market we had accidentally stumbled upon on the way there only to marvel at more food stalls.

Still full from breakfast we tried to walk some of it off with a wander around the lovely Vincenzo Bellini park. It was now 2pm and despite only being 24C felt really hot and sweaty. 

The "other" market

So instead of trying to cram some more coffee and cake in we went back to the apartment for a snooze. 

Refreshed we went back to the park to check out Spinella right across the road. Another cafe selling an incredible selection of cakes and small bites.
We both went for Arancini, deep fried rice ball or cone with varying fillings. Rich had meatballs and cheese. I had pistachio and bacon. Another traditional food ticked off the list. Needless to say both were quite delicious.

Arancini

One more thing to do today. Walked over to Monastero dei Benedettini to have a look at one of the biggest monasteries in Europe.

Found another amphitheatre on the way, of which most is unfortunately buried under the city. Only a tiny little bit has been excavated. Originally it could hold staggering 15,000 people!

The monastery is not what you would expect. Built in the mid 1500s it fell victim to the eruption of 1669 that basically destroyed Catania followed by the earthquake in 1693.
The complex was rebuilt, partially changed adapting to a lava flow and had quite a few owners over time who kept building new stuff on top of old.
So what we found was this odd architectural mix which is hard to describe. Most of it is used by the Catania university for offices for professors and other rooms for lectures and stuff.

We did the guided tour at 5pm which was in Italian, but we got a transcript in English so we could follow the tour. It was well worth it, because this way we got to see a lot of areas that are normally closed off.

Highlight for me was the "monumental staircase", another baroque piece of architectural art.

Bit of a chill at the apartment, then for dinner at 8pm. This time we picked Eat Pizzeria only a 3min walk away. According to TripAdvisor they serve pretty good Pizzoli, basically a pizza sandwich. Another Sicilian specialty. Two very thin pizza dough pieces with some filling in the middle. The top one is baked off with olive oil, pecorino and oregano. I had mine filled with spicy Italian sausage, black olives, ricotta and green asparagus. Delicious and very filling!

Back home showers, one more glass of our nice Aetna white and soon to bed.