Catania Fontanarossa Airport ground transport

Fontanarossa is close to Catania in the way Naples is close to Naples: seven kilometres, no rail link, and a bus that does the job cheaply. The AMT Alibus runs from directly outside arrivals to Catania Centrale and on through the centre for a flat €4, taking twenty to twenty-five minutes, every twenty to twenty-five minutes through the day and with a reduced night service. Buy from the machine or the tobacconist inside the terminal — it is cheaper than on board. For most arrivals the real destination is elsewhere on the island, and Fontanarossa functions as Sicily's eastern gateway rather than as Catania's airport. Interbus runs the coach north to Taormina at seven or eight euros, seventy to ninety minutes, roughly hourly and directly from the terminal; the same company and its partners reach Syracuse, Messina, Ragusa and Palermo. A taxi to Taormina runs ninety to a hundred and twenty euros, which is worth it for a group and rarely worth it for one. Car hire is genuinely useful here in a way it is not in Naples or Venice — Etna, the Val di Noto baroque towns and the coast between Acireale and Taormina are all awkward by bus and easy by car, and the motorway network on this side of Sicily is good. Two local realities to hold on to. First, Etna is an active volcano and its ash grounds flights at Fontanarossa several times most years, sometimes for a day or more; a same-day onward connection is a gamble in the weeks after an eruption. Second, Catania's own traffic is heavy and its historic centre has a limited traffic zone, so a car collected on arrival is a liability until you leave the city.