Acireale

Acireale is a historic city of art on Sicily’s eastern coast, in the province of Catania and the Riviera dei Ciclopi, set on a dark lava terrace above the Ionian Sea. Between the water and the southern slopes of Mount Etna, it has a scenic, volcanic character: a coastal town with an elevated historic core, a strong religious presence and deep local traditions.

Its identity reaches back through legend and layered settlement. Sources associate the area with the mysterious Greek Xiphonia and the Roman Akis, a name also linked to the myth of Aci and Galatea. In the 14th century, families moving north from the older Aci area founded Aquilia, the nucleus of the present town; in 1642 it became “Reale” under Philip IV of Spain, a change remembered in the modern name Acireale.

Much of the city’s architectural character belongs to the period after the destructive 1693 earthquake, when reconstruction gave Acireale its baroque face. Today it is remembered as the “city of a hundred bell towers”, distinctive for the way myth, Etna’s landscape and a mercantile-ecclesiastical past meet above the Ionian coast.