Prior to actually coming here, I had heard mostly negative reviews of Palermo. After traveling through the rest of Italy, people love to dish about how dirty Palermo is. And Bourdain's episode on Sicily painted Palermo with similarly discouraging colors. People also brought up the Mafia a lot when discussing Palermo, alluding to connections between the systemic corruption of government and the poor up-keep of the streets. A few weeks out, I was sort of expecting Palermo to be a dump, but then I had an Italian friend rave about how much she loves this city, describing it as 'decaying and decadent.' This put my expectations on par with Havana, Cuba, and that made me really excited!
Catania is the second largest city in Sicily. The population of Catania proper is about 320,000, but there are a combined 1.1 million people who live in the metro area. In Italy overall, Catania is the 10th biggest city, and the 7th largest metro area. This is a major population center for Sicily, second only to Palermo, which will be our last stop on this trip. Catania is not the most well-known place, but it's definitely not small either. It's actually really big, especially by Sicilian standards. But Catania's burgeoning population should be surprising. This isn't exactly prime real estate.
Why? Because of Mount Etna.
With places like Florence and Rome literally at my fingertips, it might be considered an odd move to choose to visit Genoa instead. Genoa had always fascinated me though. Nobody ever talks about it, but, if Google Images was to be believed, it's a gorgeous seaside city! Let's check it out...
