One of the most ambitious, but also most worthwhile, of the tours that we had planned for this particular trip was the tour we took yesterday (as I write this) to Mt. Etna, one of the tallest mountains in Europe, and a rather complex volcano that is responsible for building up most of the eastern part of the island of Sicily. The city of Catania and other communities to the tune of about 1 million people live under the shadow of Mt. Etna, a mountain that frequently erupts one of its summits and that also shows its activity in other ways, including immensely slow lava flows. During the course of a few hours, we managed to explore several aspects of the mountain and its power, although it should be noted that we only went up a bit more than 2000m above sea level, and the highest part of the mountain was under exclusion because the mountain had shown signs of life and had erupted only about a month ago.

Once we assembled together–and we were the last people to be picked up in the group, having correctly waited at the right Garibaldi statue near our hotel–we went off to a nearby place to pick up supplies. My hiking boots were deemed as acceptable for walking, the only reason I had brought them in the first place–and I was given a couple of walking sticks to help out with the hiking. We then drove up the southeastern slope of the mountain, where we saw some of the lava flows that had come over the course of decades, one of which about twenty years ago ended just a short distance from the closest village. We then went to the last place where motor vehicles could go and then hiked up from there. My mother stayed in the area where the van had dropped us off, but the rest of us hiked, and as someone who is by no means a great climber, the first part of the hike was especially steep and rigorous. I wasn’t able to hike all the way to the top where we went, but I did get a considerable way, into the lava fields where one saw that it took twenty years or more for any plant life to grow on the hard lavascape.

After we returned to the vehicle, we were off to another location, a cave where lava had once flowed, where our guide revealed to us that this particular cave was one of more than 150 such caves that existed in the area of Mt. Etna, many of which, among the known caves, were used in times past by women to store meat in icehouses underground for months. This particular cave that we saw had a curious but wary goat on top of it looking at us to determine what sort of danger he was in–fortunately not much–and had been discovered by engineers using thermal scanning to see where the underground lava flows were going, after which they blew up the cave to cool the lava and stop the flow from moving down the mountain towards towns and villages.

After exploring the cave, our group then went to enjoy a fine lunch–which sadly ended up being the last food I had last night due to a mishap in trying to get dinner, another story for another time, perhaps–which involved trying out various Catania street food options. Two of the options had pork, so they were off limits, but one was a tasty and small pan pizza with cheese and tomato sauce and the other was a ball of rice and veal and potatoes inside of dough, and that one was pretty tasty as well, even if I’m normally not much for eating veal, it must be admitted. After that it was time to go back to the hotel after our hiking supplies were returned to their place, and after walking to the hotel, where we had stored our bags, it was time to go to the airport immediately.