The elephant, symbol of our city Catania

Our city has got a particular symbol, a stone-made elephant. It is in the main square of the city just in front of the cathedral dedicated to its patron, Saint Agatha .

The elephant stands in the centre of the square and it seems to observe the city and its inhabitants , who are very affectionated to it.

There are many legends linked to it, but there is one in particular which sounds very fascinating. It tells us that in ancient times , when Catania was firstly inhabited, some fierce animals threatened the city; so its inhabitants used the elephant (which was called Diotru) to make the other animals go away. As a consequence in order to thank the elephant people made a statue which represented it and which has become the symbol of the city.

The legend of the chestnut of the 100 horses.

There is a chestnut in a small village

called Saint Alfio at the foot of volcano

Etna which seems to be the biggest and the most ancient tree in Europe (between 2000 and 4000 years old).

It can be considered a real "vegetal monument" and it attaracts lots of tourists every year.

Its story was told by Jean Houl who after a visit in S. Alfio was so impressed that he wrote about it.

There is a fascinating legend linked to this marvellous tree that tells us that queen Giovanna d'Aragona used to go to Naples and then to Sicily to visit volcano Etna together with the nobles from Catania riding a horse like her knights.

It seems that one day she with all her knights was caught in the storm, so she took refuge under the huge tree whose leaves became a very safe shelter for all of them.

Today the tree is divided into three hollowed trunks. In the past there was a house inside it.

The origin of Rome, the capital of Italy

According to a fascinating legend, Romolo and Remo were the children of the God Marte and Rea Silva, who was the daughter of the king of Alba Longa Numitore. Numitore was deposed by his brother Amulio who forced Rea Silva to do vow of chastity.
King Amulio who knew of the birth of Romolo and Remo became furious and ordered to kill the children, but the servant who had to kill them wasn't so corageous to do that ; so he decided to put the children in a basket and leave them in the river Tevere. The basket who was pushed by the current, after some time stopped in an area which is the actual Palatino . Here children were found by a she-wolf that brought them with her till when a shepherd whose name was Faustolo found them and he brought them at home and he raised them. When they grew up Romolo and Remo came back to Alba Longa where they killed their uncle Amulio. Numitore became king again. The brothers decided to found a new town. A name for the town had to be chosen but neither Romolo nor Remo wanted to give up; so after a terrible quarrel Romolo killed Remo and the town was founded by Romolo who gave it his name and he himself became the first king of Rome.

The Eolie islands

The Eolies, as the legend tells us, have been created by Eolo, the god of winds. They are seven isles situated in the province of Messina and they are : Lipari, Vulcano, Stromboli, Panarea, Salina, Alicudi and Filicudi. The islands were submarine volcanoes emerged from the waters around 700.000 years ago in this order : Panarea, Filicudi, Alicudi, Salina, Lipari, Vulcano and Stromboli ;the latter is probably 40.000 years old.
Many archaeological sites have been discovered in all the islands (this means that they were inhabited during the prehistoric age) exception done for Vulcano which couldn't be inhabited because of its continuous and intense erptions of its crater.