Etna

Etna is huge – 10,910 feet high and 40Km wide at the base. We first saw it looming behind other mountains from Milazzo on the north coast. The two recommended places to start a trip to the craters are Riposto and Catani. We chose the former as the mooring prospects looked much better,
Getting up there is quite a challenge. There seems to be no public transport up to the start of the cable car so we had to hire a car in the port and drive for two
hours. The trip from there was €53.00 each and worth every penny.
As we went climbed from the car to the start of the cable car, we were surrounded by thousands of ladybirds – crawling on everything, flying around, and many of them crushed under foot. Very odd and I have no idea what they were doing up there.

The cable is very efficient and whisked us up to 2000 meters followed by another 1000M climb in a 4-wheel drive bus. At the refuge we picked up a guide who spoke Italianbut very little English. Luckily he spoke French and I was able to translate for the others.



The first thing we saw was the destroyed refuge from the 1971 eruption. It erupts irregularly but frequently and has been grumbling all this year so trips to the 4 main craters were out of the question.





We tramped around the craters that did all the damage in 1991 seeing gas, steam and sulphur all in a crumbling lunar landscape.








At one point our guide dug a 6 inch hole in the mointain side and pulled out pebbles that were almost too hot to touch!










At the end of the trip, the clouds which had been shrouding the tip of the mountain cleared a bit and we were able to see the summit smoking.
Altogether a very memorable experience.