Villa Agata

Etna Odyssey

by Lalique

There are two "standard" ways to reach Etna vulcano - one from the North, among forests and green valleys, another from the South thrugh the recent lava flows and Lunar like landscape....
We chose the second one....

The southern ascending can be easily made starting from Acireale (in our case we had no other option :))), then following the signs we drove thru Aci Sant' Antonio, Viagrande, Trescatagni and finally Nicolosi, the famous ski resort. Then a rather new road led us up Etna side thru the lava flows. The surrounding seemed strange indeed, as the road is laid literally above lava, almost nothing can be seen to the left or to the right but lava petrified flows. We stopped halfway to take a picture of the house suffered the eruption....

The final point of our ride was Crateri Silvestri where there is a stop for everyone coming to Etna, either by coach or by car.... From this point you can either walk by yourself or take a guided tour....

The first sights of Enta fascinate you... a combination of red and black lava, greenish spots of weeds here and there, blue skies and white moving clouds... but keep in mind that "the beast" is just napping inside, ready to burst out anytime....

There are two type of tours can e taken to Etna. 1st one is the cheapest and easiest (ok, ok, I shouldn't do it, but I'll tell u that we took that one ), it takes you around recent craters and eruptions and you don't have to climb too high. The whole tour takes about 2 hrs (90% of it by feet) and costs 5 eur.

This is recent lava flows, recent means of 2001, the flow trace can be notably seen on the pic. Unfortunately due this eruption the cable road which took people on very Etna top was ruined.

2nd one is more expensive and probably more exciting. As the cable was broken, people are taken to the very Etna top (as I was told) by jeep. It costs 38 eur per head.
But at the time of choosing which tour to take we were to 3 craters already by ourselves (Silvestri and some neighboring ones), that we didn't want to spoil our impressions by any way ....