Catania

There’s a certain sense of foreboding I get in Catania. Etna looms above a city tightly packed with dark-grey lava-stone buildings, its narrow streets filled with loud, busy markets.

We slip away from one of them and climb a small flight of stairs to Trattoria Aldo: a wood-panelled paradise feeding market workers and locals with fresh seafood, cheap house wine and the star of the show, a buffet of contorni.

Back outside, there’s a sense of danger I can never quite place. Nothing has happened, yet the city keeps me alert. An arancino helps.

It is only when we climb above the throbbing heart of the centre to Chiesa di San Giuliano that Catania’s vulnerability comes properly into view. From up here, Etna feels less like a backdrop and more like a physical threat. It becomes easier to understand why the city has such a different energy to Palermo.

In Catania you have to work for its affection.

Less open, more alert. Less grandeur, more grit. A city built from the very thing that still threatens it.