Acireale

All the Aci towns of Sicily — Castello, Catena, Trezza, Sant'Antonio, Bonaccorsi, San Filippo — are named after a river that no longer exists: the Greeks' Akis, which flowed here and has since died out. Myth ties it to Acis, the shepherd loved by Galatea and killed by Polyphemus: his blood, they say, became the river. This town was called Aquilia Nuova, founded in the fourteenth century by a dozen families who moved north; the «royal» in its name was a gift from Philip IV of Spain in 1642.

The earthquake of 11 January 1693 partly destroyed it, and the rebuilding gave it the face it wears now: Acireale is the capital of Catanian baroque in lava stone and white — Piazza Duomo and San Sebastiano above all — and it is also the town of a hundred bells. Its carnival, which Sicilians consider the finest on the island, is named in a document as early as 1594, and the flower-covered floats are an Acireale invention. Below lies the Timpa: not a hill but a fault scarp sheer above the sea, a nature reserve, with the descent of the Chiazzette and the fishing village of Santa Maria la Scala — one of six the comune lines up along its coast. Granita with a brioche, here, is a matter of identity.