Piazza del Duomo

Piazza del Duomo is the obvious centre of Catania, the place every walk eventually returns to. It is paved in the black lava stone that gives the city its peculiar dark tone, and three of its four sides are heavy baroque buildings — the cathedral, the Palazzo degli Elefanti (the town hall), and the Palazzo del Seminario dei Chierici. The fourth side opens toward Via Etnea, the main shopping street running north out of the square.

The Fontana dell'Elefante sits in the middle. Around it, café tables, hawkers, the entrance to the Pescheria market under a vaulted archway, and the steady flow of locals cutting across the square give the place a working-civic feel that the more touristed piazzas of mainland Italy have largely lost.

things to do sight square
A story
The square's centrepiece, the Fontana dell'Elefante, is an actual Roman-era basalt elephant, probably first or second century, that the medieval Catanesi adopted as the symbol of their city. In 1736 Giovanni Vaccarini set it on a fountain pedestal and balanced an Egyptian obelisk on its back, creating one of the strangest civic monuments in Europe.