Catania is an excellent base for the eastern half of Sicily. Mount Etna is the obvious priority — half-day or full-day tours run from the city, with the southern Rifugio Sapienza route the most common. The mountain villages of Zafferana Etnea, Nicolosi and Linguaglossa make pleasant lunch stops in their own right.
Taormina is fifty kilometres north, an hour by train or car. The Greek theatre, the medieval town and the Isola Bella are well known and very crowded in summer but still extraordinary. Siracusa is sixty kilometres south, also reachable by train; the island of Ortigia and the Greek archaeological park are easily a full day. Caltagirone and Piazza Armerina, with the Roman mosaics at Villa Romana del Casale, sit inland and are best by car.
Closer to Catania, the small towns of the lava country are within a half-hour by bus or train. Acireale is a baroque town on the cliffs, famous for the finest Carnival in Sicily. Acitrezza is the setting of Verga's I Malavoglia, with the basalt sea stacks said to be the rocks thrown by the blinded Polyphemus rising just offshore. Neighbouring Aci Castello wraps around a Norman castle built onto a lava sea stack, and a coastal path links the two villages in about half an hour on foot.
