Catania

One of us wants to take pictures of windmills against graffiti; the other wants to chat to a friend on a zebra crossing. I won.

I'm proud of having overcome the sunk cost fallacy today, even if in a small way. I abandoned my already-paid-for room in Agrigento for tonight because I'd already seen what I wanted. I booked one in Catania. Off. Again!

I couldn't believe that despite the hordes getting on the bus, I got a front seat on the top deck. I enjoyed watching departure vignettes as we stopped to collect more passengers:
A father giving farewell kiss on the head to a teenage son and, smiling to himself as he got back into the car he'd left in the middle of the road (blocking the bus), driving off.
A middle-aged woman kissing her father's cheek, letting go of his hand, and watching him into the bus before falling into conversation with someone else on the pavement until the bus left.
A grey-haired man on the pavement, jiggling his car keys, impatient to wave the bus off.
A balding man, subdued, hands in pockets, staring into the distance. Who was leaving him and why?
As the bus pulled away, a woman stopping texting, touching her heart, smiling, blowing a kiss.

My room for tonight is five minutes from the bus station, convenient for now and for tomorrow morning even though, as usual with bus stations it's in the be-wary part of town.

I had no plan for Catania other than my usual in a new place: walk towards the cathedral and see what happens on the way, then see which place pulls next. It was an interesting walk - from the rough area, through the liminal area inhabited by artists and those who have slung revolutionary mantras in red and black across buildings ('True dignity is community-run spaces', 'True degradation is institutions based on profit'), then into the mainstream part of town.

I love the feel of Catania - although many of the buildings are shabby, they are quite elegant in an unselfconscious way. The city feels like it's living its own life, rather than focusing on tourists, although there are discreet information boards in Italian and English outside lots of interesting buildings.

The cathedral is much more to my taste than most - plain stone in shades of grey, including some lava stone - Etna is not far away and delivered a huge amount of stone in liquid form to (through) people's doors in 1669. It's watched over by a very endearing elephant (extra).

I was taken by a picture I saw of the cloisters at the Benedictine monastery so went there via the castle. Tours for the day were finished but it's now the department of humanities for Catania University. There were loads of degree festivities happening outside, so I just went into the site, looked at a plan of the building, worked out where the cloisters must be, walked round the outside, found a small staircase and yes, there they were - with students sitting around on laptops and reading. As so often, I was invisible. A great advantage.

As I was wandering around, I stumbled across not one ancient Roman theatre, but two. As I said, Catania wears its tourist attractions lightly.

Extras
- oranges
- oranges and pinks
- a snatched picture of the cloisters - not a good pic - a memento only
- that elephant!
- marble in Italy is rubbish. I've watched workmen break up big chunks, which would definitely be sought after in the UK, to fit them into a rubbish bucket
- some pebbles for Tivoli