Roman Theatre of Catania in Catania, Italy

Hidden behind a nondescript doorway on Catania's main street lies one of Sicily's most overlooked treasures. According to Atlas Obscura, the Teatro Romano di Catania is a first-century Roman theatre built directly atop an ancient Greek stage where the politician Alcibiades once rallied Catanaeans to join Athens against Sparta in four hundred fifteen BC. With a seven-thousand-seat capacity, it's unique among Roman amphitheatres in being seamlessly woven into the modern city—its ancient corridors run beneath Baroque building facades and contemporary homes, where TV antennas and air conditioning units contrast sharply with ancient stone seats. Excavated in seventeen seventy following an earthquake that had damaged the overlying structures, the theatre remains so cunningly concealed that tourists strolling the busy street above pass within yards of its ancient walls, entirely unaware.

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