The Rough Guide to Sicily (Travel Guide with Free eBook) by Rough Guides

Author:Rough Guides
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Travel, Italy
Publisher: Apa Publications
Published: 2023-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

In medieval times, three churches took turns to act as Randazzo’s cathedral, a sop to the three parishes in town whose inhabitants were of Greek, Latin and Lombard origin. The largest, Santa Maria, on the main Via Umberto I, is the modern-day holder of the title, a severe Catalan-Gothic structure with a fine carved portal with vine decoration. Further up the road, facing a small square, the blackened tower that forms part of the old city walls is all that survives of Randazzo’s Castello Svevo, which did duty as a prison from around 1500 until 1973.

Museo Vagliasindi

Via Castello 1 • Tues–Sun 9am–1.30pm • Charge • http://beniculturali.it

Museo Vagliasindi holds a good collection of objects from a nearby Greek necropolis, including wine jugs in the form of women’s heads, and a vessel in the shape of a spunky little rat. Downstairs you’ll find ranks of dangling Sicilian puppets, variously sporting armour, a velvet cloak or a deer-stalker cap – typically for eastern Sicily, they are taller than the puppets you may have seen in Palermo. The tower was once a prison, and you can still see the minuscule cells where inmates once rotted. The museum’s other rooms display agricultural tools and other rustic items.

Arrival and information Randazzo

By Circumetnea train Arriving on the Circumetnea, walk straight up Via Vittorio Veneto to reach the central Piazza Loreto, with the medieval town further on, down Via Umberto I.

Destinations Catania (up to 7 daily Mon–Sat; 2hr 20min); Linguaglossa (4 daily Mon–Sat; 35min); Riposto (4 daily Mon–Sat; 1hr 10min).

By bus The bus station is a couple of blocks back from Piazza Loreto off Via Vittorio Veneto. There are frequent connections with Catania (1–2 hourly Mon–Sat; 1hr 45min), and limited services (early morning and lunchtime) to several other places you might want to visit, such as Bronte, Castiglione di Sicilia and Gole Alcantara. There’s also a morning bus (leaving at 8am) to Taormina.

Accommodation and eating

Ai Tre Parchi Bed and Bike Via Tagliamento 49; http://aitreparchibb.it. Basic place offering B&B rooms and self-catering apartments, plus bike rental and local bike tours. To reach Via Tagliamento, turn left off Via Vittorio Veneto from the station. €

Da Antonio Via Pietro Nenni 8; http://ristorantedantonio.com. Decent choice for typical local dishes and pizzas; the house antipasto is really good, too. The restaurant is a few hundred metres from Piazza Loreto – walk down the Linguaglossa road, past the petrol stations, and it’s up a side road on the right. €

San Giorgio e Il Drago Piazza San Giorgio 28; http://ristorantesangiorgioeildrago.it. Lovely, cosy trattoria housed in a nineteenth-century wine cellar, run by Samantha and Daniele Anzalone, with seasonal food cooked by their two mothers. In spring, there’s the chance to eat home-made pasta with wild asparagus; in autumn, look out for dishes using porcini mushrooms collected from the woods of Etna; and in winter, sausage fried with wild greens. €€

Bronte’s pistachios

The mineral-rich volcanic soil of Bronte produces what are considered to be the best pistachios in Italy, grown in the exquisitely tended orchards that stretch around the town.

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