Catania

Monday, May 20th

Dawn over the nearby marina was beautiful, and it was nice to see one of the fishing boats leaving from my room window just after I woke up.

Today we booked a tour of nearby Mt Etna, the largest and most active volcano in Europe. We were collected by our guide, Carmello, and his translator, Grazia. There were two other people on the tour, a French couple from Montelimar.

Mt Etna is about 40km from Catania, and over 3,000 metres high. There were opportunities to take spectacular photos on the way up, and the weather was fine and clear. The dust storm of last week had finally cleared by yesterday.

At one particular stop on the way up you could see the remnants of last winter's snow. We also passed a number of cyclists who clearly see it as a kind of challenge, much as we might if we lived in Catania and hadn't just cycled 1,400km from Pisa.

At about 2,000m there is a car park, some shops and restaurants, and a cable car which can take you within "striking" distance of the summit, if you have the time and inclination (which we didn't). However, we did grab a drink before setting off to explore the nearby smaller craters on foot.

A lot of other people had the same idea!

But we walked higher than most and were eventually able to escape the crowds that congregate closer to their tour buses and the facilities. That's Grazia on the left, Carmello in the shades (!), the French couple and Tony on the right.

Here's me in front of one of the quite recent (2001?) lava flows.

And then we set off to go even higher. It was like walking on black, very course sand.

At the next crater we all took pictures, of course, and some even got their pads out to take their pictures.

Looking back you can just see the coast and Catania in the distance.

On the way down were visited one of the several hundred "caves" formed by lava passing through rock (or something - I admit I didn't follow the explanation). This was one of the largest and was only discovered when this new road was being constructed a few years ago. Silly hat and cave torches were mandatory.

And inside, it was also mandatory to take pictures of the "miners" coming out of their cave.

On the way down we saw the lava flow from the 1993 eruption. Apparently this was the first time that man had intervened to redirect lava flow. They did this by creating and earth wall and dynamiting holes to "attract" the lava away from a town which would otherwise have been buried. Unfortunately, the lava then destroyed parts of a nature reserve and popular picnic area.

The final dinner for Team Tony started with beers on the balcony of our nearby pizzeria:

And because the sun was going down we needed to rug up a bit. We decided to eat "inside" although the sides of the outdoor dining area opened to the sea:

The last meal was more than just pizza, and of course it was accompanied by (chilled) red wine, and followed later by limoncello and gelati!