Explore Nicolosi

The Amphitheatre of Catania is a Roman arena of lava stone, built in the second half of the 1st century AD and enlarged in the 2nd century to hold more than 15,000 spectators. Most of it lies under the old town; a section of the arena, the podium wall, a corridor and the seating above it is exposed below street level in Piazza Stesicoro.

The Monastery of San Nicolò l'Arena is a former Benedictine monastery in Catania, founded in 1558 and rebuilt in late Baroque style after the lava flow of 1669 and the earthquake of 1693. One of the largest monastic complexes in Europe, it now houses the University of Catania's humanities department; guided tours show its cloisters, corridors and underground levels.

The Roman Theatre of Catania is the excavated ruin of a theatre on the southern slope of the Montevergine hill, first built in the 1st century AD and enlarged in the 2nd, when the smaller Odeon beside it was added. Its seating held about 7,000 people. Houses later covered it, and two of them, kept during the excavations, now show the finds as an Antiquarium.

Catania Cathedral is dedicated to Saint Agatha, the city's patron saint. First built in 1078-1093 by Roger I of Sicily over the Roman Achillean Baths, it was rebuilt in Baroque style after the 1693 earthquake, with a façade by Giovanni Battista Vaccarini; the Norman apses and parts of the transept survive. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Catania.

Palazzo Biscari is the Baroque town palace of the Paternò Castello princes of Biscari, built on Catania's 16th-century sea walls after the earthquake of 1693 and completed by Ignazio V (1714–1786). Still largely lived in by the family, it opens its frescoed halls for short guided tours, concerts and events.