Friday (Nov 4th)
The hotel provides a wonderful breakfast for its guests, so of course I had to have an Italian danish, called una coronetta in anticipation of my 9am pickup for Etna Tour. The waitress looked at me as if I had three heads when I said that I didnt drink coffee... but I DID NOT ask for a Coke Lite. When the jeep arrived, I knew that I was in for fun day. This was not your typical jeep.... but rather a high wheel mud trucking jeep. There were 7 of us in a jeep designed for 6. I was the only female and American... 3 Brits, 3 German, and a Hungarian; the two German men worked for Lufthansa as A320 mechanics and were in Catania for work. So I took my position in the very back with three men,which soon grew to a fourth. As it was so warm (74) in Catania, I did not think to bring a jacket of sweather, tho' all of the guys had heavy gear. Fortunately with so many people in the jeep, it was warm there once we headed up Etna.
Mount Etna is an active volcano on the east coast of Sicily, between Catania and Messina. Books indiate that the mountain is 10,922 ft high (we got to 1,800 meters – about 5,900 feet), though this varies with summit eruptions. It is the highest mountain in Italy south of the Alps. Etna covers an area of 460 sq mi and is about two and a half times the height of the next largest, Vesuvius.
1st stop was a Mt Etna quarry. Not sure why, other than to show the diverse layers or rock and lava. 2nd stop was below the cloud layer, a pasture with goats. 3rd stop was a 1985 lava flow that surrounded a house.
4th stop was at a crater, near a famous hotel and the ski lodge. The people in this house got out before it was surrounded by lava. This was located in the cloud/fog layer of our climb up Etna.
A gift shop showed that lava had come very close in 1981. This gift shop is next to the ski lifts as this location is supposed to be one of Etna's famous ski locations.
5th stop was a lava tube, where we climbed down in it. Guide said that when you are walking on a flow the sound is very distinct, like bubbling water. Inside the lava tube, we all had to wear helmets. It was a short climb down, and then we walked both sides of the tube.
Next stop was a field where we could see the top of Etna (see the white puff) and two arms of a lava flow that I think he said occured in the 1980s.
Last stop was to try lemon-cello (for the Brits who had never tried) in little town Zafferana.
There was also a red liquor that I tried, not good – the red was to signify a fire-y taste. Wow was it powerful, but not as good as the Lemoncello. Also I tried Grappa.... Ugh, also not good – not much of a distinctive taste other than what seemed like pure alcohol. Glad the driver didn’t try any,given these roads. The one Brit tried all of the different drinks, including some Sicilian wine, and given how tall he was and the was sitting in the back with me, I was afraid he would sleep the whole way down and snore.... but instead, he chatted constantly asking everyone what they did and where they were going.
Back to hotel around 4pm. Unfortunately, my cell phone has not materialized. I really miss not having all of my electronic maps of walks that can be taken in Catania. Walking around with my Ipad is not what I want to do. So I walked around in the rain. Conference call at 6pm until 8, then went to a restaurant for dinner. Risotto Con Pesca and fried squid. Stuffed... So went back to hotel around 9:30 . It was so hot in the room (25C), sleep very difficult.
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