Catania, Italy

Asmundo di Gisira

Price per night from$230.60

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (inclusive of taxes and fees) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR210.10), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Asmundo di Gisira Photos

Style

Artistry in residence

Setting

Catania’s prime palazzo

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Checking in to Asmundo di Gisira is like hunting for treasure in an alternate universe – you never know what you might find, but you’re sure to pick up something utterly unique along the way. This boldly designed art boutique is a canvas for Catania’s creative side. Each individually decorated space is the result of various collaborations with largely local artists, resulting in a masterfully curated mash-up of modern art and antiques. The Art Rooms are dedicated to fantastical figures from Sicilian mythology, including crocodile-wrestling heroes and elephant-enamoured mages, so you can piece together your bedtime stories from the artistic hints around you while your imagination really runs riot.

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A bottle of prosecco

Facilities

Photos Asmundo di Gisira facilities

Need to know

Rooms

13, including three suites.

Check–Out

11am, but flexible, subject to availability. Earliest check-in, 2.30pm.

More details

Rates include a breakfast of home-baked pastries and Sicilian savoury favourites (with eggs cooked to order), made exclusively using local ingredients from Catania’s historic market (just a cannoli’s throw down the street).

Also

The Aci e Galatea room is suitable for guests with mobility issues.

At the hotel

Rooftop solarium, reading room, private dining room with open-kitchen, charged laundry service and free WiFi. In rooms: smart TV, electric diffuser with natural essences, minibar stocked with organic treats, tea-making kit, coffee machine and Ortigia bath products.

Our favourite rooms

Each stay at Asmundo di Gisira (divided between Art Rooms and Neoclassic Rooms) is truly one-of-a-kind. Choosing which exhibition space you’d like to sleep over in really comes down to picking out your favourite artwork. For the biggest bathroom in the palazzo (and your own piano for in-suite serenades) opt for the Bellini Suite, which takes its name from the Catania-born opera composer, Vincenzo Bellini. You’ll find some words of encouragement in metallic lettering above the bed, which read, “You make my heart go boom boom.” We’re sure Bellini would have agreed.

Packing tips

Factoring in the Sicilian heat you’ll have to contend with during the island’s sweltering summers, breezy linens and a pair of oversized shades are best. But don’t be afraid to go bold with your colours and prints for your own Monica Vitti moment.

Also

Bathing at this hotel is quite an experience in itself. Some of the bathrooms continue the spa’s chromotherapy theme, others feature original floor tiles that have been upcycled onto the walls – and the Uzeta room’s five-metre-high monsoon shower quite li

Children

Welcome, but you’ll mostly find grown-up gallerists here.

Sustainability efforts

This plastic-free property rarely strays from its Sicilian roots, championing natural, recycled materials, and choosing to purchase locally wherever possible – including the market-fresh produce served at breakfast, the Ortigia amenities (one of Sicily’s most luxurious exports) and the artwork on the walls – which, for the most part, has been created by local artists.

Food and Drink

Photos Asmundo di Gisira food and drink

Top Table

Any of the alfresco tables on the first-floor terrace come with sweeping city views, but you can also request to take breakfast on the rooftop (for an additional charge).

Dress Code

Whatever you’d wear to an art gallery, as that’s where you’ll be dining.

Hotel restaurant

There’s no restaurant as such, but the ornately decorated private dining room (plus open kitchen) on the hotel’s second floor can be booked out by residents for brunch and dinner. Rustic Sicilian light bites (locally cured meats and cheese) are also served on the sun-soaked rooftop terrace, presented on cactus-style plates, which tie in with the surrounding succulents and fragrant potted plants.

Hotel bar

Bitter blood-orange negronis and limoncello-based cocktails flow freely from the first-floor bar, accompanied by – you guessed it – Sicilian-inspired artworks. A stitched collage of old Mediterranean maps and island photographs by Palermo-based artist Rossana Taormina hangs alongside a whimsical mural by Swedish illustrator Daniel Egnéus depicting elephants, donkeys, butterflies and cacti – with a Sicilian story behind each drawing. Aperitivi and slow-food snacks can also be enjoyed up on Rooftop Gisira from 6pm each evening, just as the clouds above Etna begin to turn a dusky pink.

Last orders

Breakfast is from 7.30am to 10.30am.

Room service

In-room dining (available between 8am and 11pm) is a feast for the eyes in your own private gallery space.

Location

Photos Asmundo di Gisira location
Address
Asmundo di Gisira
Via Gisira 40
Catania
95121
Italy

In the heart of the Old Town, Asmundo di Gisira is just a saunter down the street from La Pescheria market – also counting Catania’s cathedral and the Elephant Fountain as neighbours.

Planes

Catania-Fontanarossa Airport (also known as Vincenzo Bellini Airport) is just a 20-minute drive away, and the hotel can help to arrange transfers for €‎30 one-way. If you’re starting your trip on the northern side of Sicily, you could fly into Falcone Borsellino Airport (Palermo Airport) and work your way around the island.

Trains

Catania Centrale is 10 minutes by car from the hotel, with easy connections to Palermo, Messina and Syracuse. Ask the hotel about its station pick-up and drop-off service, which costs €15 one-way.

Automobiles

There’s not much need for a car if your stay in Catania is fleeting - especially given the area around the hotel is pedestrian-only so there's no parking nearby - but much of Sicily’s coastal and rural charms are best discovered with some (ideally small, whizzy) wheels – particularly given Catania’s proximity to Mount Etna, which is steaming out for a visit.

Worth getting out of bed for

Don’t expect the aristocratic air of Palermo – Catania’s charcoal streets are a little rough around the edges (much of the dark lava stone used to build the Baroque palazzi was hewn from Etna itself), but the city feels all the more characterful for it. A short, urban-safari stroll from Asmundo di Gisira is the curious (and rather comical) Elephant Fountain, a lava-stone Roman statue known locally as Liotru, which stands on an Egyptian obelisk in the centre of Piazza del Duomo. The south-west corner of this Unesco-listed piazza – a photographer-pleasing mish-mash of lava and limestone – leads onto Catania’s delightfully raucous La Pescheria, a daily fish market brimming with glistening seafood. This is as good a people-watching spot as it is the locally approved place to pick up the catch of the day. The classically inclined should visit Museo Civico, for the Biscari archaeological collection of colossal sculptures, Greek pottery and ancient mosaics, displayed within the imposing 13th-century Castello Ursino. And of course, it would be impossible to visit Catania without paying some sort of homage to its operatic legend, Vincenzo Bellini – whether it’s joining local dog-walkers for a sunny stroll around the picturesque Giardino Bellini, or stepping through the stucco and marble entrance of Teatro Massimo Bellini for a suitably lavish night at the opera. For some of the most magnificent views of Mount Etna, Catania’s main shopping street, Via Etnea well and truly lives up to its name – or get up close to the still-smoking giant with an off-road day trip (just a 45-minute drive away). Ask the hotel about guided crater tours (you can even hike to the summit), and wine tasting in the surrounding vineyards.

Local restaurants

Unsurprisingly, seafood is the order di giornata in Catania – and one of the finest spots just happens to be a few doors down from the hotel, within La Pescheria market, at Osteria Antica Marina. The cries of fishermen hawking their just-off-the-boat haul tend to die down later in the day, so you can dine in relative peace and quiet on simply cooked seafood platters and Sicilian pasta dishes, including Catania’s signature alla Norma sauce (a hearty combination of tomato, aubergine and ricotta). For something less seafood-centric, try the family-run Trattoria U Fucularu, for its slow-cooked Nebrodi pork shank and Catania-style zucchini rolls.

Local cafés

Sweet-toothed visitors will be happy to hear that café culture in Catania mostly revolves around granita – the icy alternative to gelato, traditionally flavoured with pistachio, citrus fruits or coffee. Most places will serve their granita sandwiched between cloud-like slices of fluffy brioche (which makes for messy but more-ish coffee-dunking material), including Pasticceria Mantegna – which has been serving up some of the island’s best hand-made granita for more than 60 years, alongside the holy trinity of Sicilian pastries (cannoli, cassata and cassatelle).

Local bars

Carbing up in Catania’s pizzerias requires a ‘washing down’ list of wine bars and aperitivo spots – something which this volcanic-grape-supplied city isn’t short of. The locally sourced wine list is particularly extensive at Razmataz, which is usually packed out with locals sipping Etna Rosso on the alfresco terrace.

Reviews

Photos Asmundo di Gisira reviews

Anonymous review

By Mr & Mrs Smith

Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this contemporary art-filled hotel in Catania and unpacked their lava-rock sculptures and volcanic-grown wine, a full account of their culture-packed coastal city break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Asmundo di Gisira in Sicily…

It’s difficult to know where to start when painting a picture of Asmundo di Gisira, which describes itself as an ‘art market living boutique’. The ‘art market’ part is apparent as soon as you step through the 17th-century palazzo doors (look out for the Asmundo family’s coat of arms at the entrance), since you can check out the contemporary collection while you check in at reception, standing above the sunken Roman streets, which can be admired through the glass floor. Every objet d’art is available to purchase, with a special price list for hotel guests, so it’s more than likely that some of the pieces will disappear during your stay – either snapped up as a souvenir by one of your fellow aesthetes, or carried off in the hands of an art dealer – which means the exhibition is ever-evolving. There are, however, some rather weird and wonderful long-standing artistic works in residence, which include a ceramic Spiderman scaling the exterior wall, a life-size Catwoman sculpture and a four-metre-tall flamingo (all by Palermo-based artist Domenico Pellegrino). This is a hotel which really needs to be seen to be believed.

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