Blogs from Mount Etna, Sicily, Italy, Europe
March 28th 2012
Wednesday – Mt Etna and the Murgo Winery We headed out for our trip to Mt. Etna at 9:00. At this time of day the mountain is clearly viewed from our terrace. Shortly, the mist from the sea will roll in and cover the summit. Since the road to our hotel is so narrow, we have to take a van to a parking lot where we meet the bus. Soon we are on the highway heading to the south slope of the volcano. The landscape is kind of barren and the soil light and chalky. The island here is mainly limestone but shortly we entered the volcanic zone where the soil was dark and rich. Here flowers bloomed, lemon groves were laden with fruit and the vines were beginning their spring growth. Etna wine is now ... read more
Mount Etna, Sicily - we climbed - we saw - we conquered
Published: May 17th 2011Europe » Italy » Sicily » Mount Etna
May 12th 2011
Mount Etna, Sicily – Imagine this we start from 28 degrees sunny hot and hit 3 degrees below with snow on same day PLUS the volcano erupted the night we visited. OMG…..we were able to walk up to the summit on clear sunny day after the short cable car ride which takes you up from approx. 1800 m level to 2,400m. You can take jeeps / 4WDs to summit but we chose to walk (round trip approx. 3 hours) and what an adventure to reach 3,000m – there was snow, amazing views of the craters, flumes of steam, couple of thunderous eruptions from the old mountain and lava ash everywhere. If you bent down you really got a head rush / dizziness due to the altitude change. Mount Etna recently erupted on January 12, 2011,and last ... read more
March 24th 2011
Bagolara After wonderful Carnevale, we left our hotel in Catania to make our way back up the east coast to our second farm. We had to get off the main north/south train line at a coastal town to catch a smaller local train that would take us inland and up to the small village of Santa Venera where the farm was located. As we pulled up to a stop with no signs what-so-ever we were lucky that the train conductor came back and told us we had arrived. We shlepped our heavy bags off the train and were left in silence as the train pulled away. All we had was an address for the farm, and we knew it was somewhat close to the train station, so we started looking for street signs. We were interrupted ... read more
July 2nd 2010
We went on a small tour with 2 other people and our Guide - Ernesto. Sera loved bouncing around in the back of a Land Rover as we went along narrow rocky paths up Mount Etna. It was interesting to hear about the history of Etna and also how you can tell the age of the lava rock from its colour. Although reaching the top was good, the real highlight for all of us was going into a lava tube! Sera also had a chance to feed a wild fox the remains of her lunch (pizza of course). I was hoping to spend the afternoon on Isola bella, but as usual poor/lack of information prevented me from doing this. Instead we spent the evening high up on the cliffside of Taormina. We then caught the night ... read more
June 13th 2010
Today has been a long and tiring day. Up at 4 am, but awake at 2.30 am, to leave at 5 am to get the 7 am catamaran to Sicily for our day trip. We managed to get a good parking spot just outside the sea terminal gates so no fees to pay. The trip was Sicily was about 90 minutes and the Med was as smooth as can be. We had a couple of cups of coffee and breakfast on board. This was a much bigger vessel than the one we got from Penang to Langkawi so there was hardly any pitching and rolling. It actually steamed at about 35 knots which is 40 miles per hour and yet there was no sensation of that speed. On arrival at Pozzallo, we boarded our coach for ... read more
April 3rd 2010
Saturday, April 3, we woke up fully rested after our long night of sleep, ready to see Mount Etna—Europe’s largest volcano! Neither of us knew too much about it, except before I left Tours my host family had me watch the French equivalent of a Bill Nye the Science Guy episode about Etna, which was mostly about the science behind volcanoes. We ate our hotel’s breakfast and attempted to check out with a man who spoke no English whatsoever before standing outside our hotel, waiting for some sort of vehicle that we would hopefully be able to identify as belonging to the Etna Tour we signed up for. Luckily, we were only there for about five minutes before a large white van pulled up with Etna written on the side. The driver got out of the ... read more
May 19th 2009
Hmm- har glemt det lille kabel til kameraet, for jeg toer naesten ikke haabe paa at finde internet-adgang - og saa lige pludselig lige her paa Lido de Naxos under Mount Etna ligger der et lille spot!! I faar derfor en lille hilsen fra det varme og urimeligt smukke Sicilien. Vi kom hertil i gaar efter at have sejlet i et doegn uden at kunne komme i havn. Foerste havn var for lav i indsejlingen (vi stikker to meter), anden havn var lukket, tredie havn var for langt vaek til at vi kunne naa den med den smule braendstof, vi havde tilbage. Vi ville egentlig gerne have vaeret oppe i Messina by eller havnen paa den anden side, men baade vind og stroem var kraftige og imod. Saa vi gik mod syd, og saa Siciliens skyline. ... read more
December 31st 2008
unforgettable trip to etna, strange feelings are guaranteed when u see these hills covered with dust ... read more
September 30th 2008
30 Sept 2008 Ky and Liam opted for a quiet day at the apartment, while Joseph and I headed for Mount Etna. We'd thought Liam wouldn't like the climbing, but as it turned out he could have come along. Following some fairly easy signposting, even through a labyrinth of little streets in a number of small towns, Joseph and I were soon driving up the side of the mountain. We really were in luck today: the clouds cleared and gave me an excellent view of the summit on the way up. Now, a little word of advice: I'd become accustomed to interpreting Italian signs with their english equivalents, and many of the words are derived from common backgrounds alt = halt, stazione = station, tutti = total. The literal translations of course don't always work, for ... read more
