Mount Etna
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When people say Mount Etna is a live volcano it’s hard to imagine what that means until you have made an ascent. On my last visit two explosions occurred within half an hour. Not lava, thankfully, rather columns of smoke, rock and ash, and it’s for this reason that visitors can’t always go to the main crater: Etna is alive and well, and frequently decides to erupt sending lava spilling down it slopes or bursting like a roman-candle firework into the skies above. Not that this alarms the locals, who are known for jumping into their cars or hopping on to a Vespa to get closer for a good look. Such is the affection of the people who live around the volcano they refer to it in the feminine, despite the fact that ‘volcano’ in Italian is the masculine 'il vulcano'.
The black triangular shape that is Europe’s largest active volcano broods over the city of Catania and can be visible halfway across the island. There’s always a layer of smoke drifting lazily from its summit, and during winter the top is capped with ice and snow much loved by the locals who go skiing and snowboarding on its slopes.
The summit itself is an eerie place; there’s a strong smell of sulphur, the endless blackened slopes lacking in vegetation stretch into the distance and seem to not be of this planet, and at more than 10,900 feet high — and growing — it can be a cold place. It is worth wearing warm clothes since the summit can be up to 20C less than the prevailing climate with strong winds that swirl around the fine volcanic ash that settles on one’s clothes and skin. There are ever small fresh craters to peer down since the terrain changes from one eruption to the next. And apart from a trip to the moon, a visit to Etna is likely to be one of the strangest, most inhospitable and most fascinating landscapes you can see in a lifetime. It’s easiest to take a cable car from Etna South to the Refugio Sapienza refuge at the top and then head out with a guide in a four-wheel drive bus across the vast swathe of black, solidified rivers of lava and craters. It is also possible to climb from Etna North at Piano Provenzana, but it is highly inadvisable to go anywhere on Etna without a guide. It is also worth checking with the Parco Regionale dell’Etna on conditions.
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Parco Regionale dell’Etna
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