Mt. Etna

So in the last blog I left off wondering how we would see Mt. Etna. Well as soon as we got up we sent a message to the tour company that our host had recommended through their contact form on the website to see if we could do the 2:30 tour or if they were flexible for another time. The website said they responded within 1 to 2 hours, so we got prepared for the day as if we were going on the tour and headed out to find some brunch.

www.etnatoursfromtaormina.com

I also spent a little time in the morning researching the geocaches that I couldn’t find yesterday. I translated the description for the cache that was in Italian to English through Google Translate. That was super helpful. This particular cache was really close to where we were walking by in the morning so Tom and I made a detour to make the find. Yesterday I wasn’t even looking at the right wall. GPS is pretty finicky here. I’m glad to have redeemed myself and was happy I was able to drop the last travel bug my mom had given me.

Shortly after finding the cache, Giuseppi from the tour company contacted us and told us he would be able to do the tour at 1:30! Perfect! Now we just had about 3 hours to kill before he would meet us. We walked up and down the main drag in search of something to eat. I was feeling kind of picky and this led to us walking all the way down, and then turning around and walking back to find an ATM (we found out that we would have to pay for the tour in cash) and then we ended up walking right back to where we had come from. We stopped in a little pizzeria where I got a panini and Tom had a calzone. Unfortunately we did not realize this place was as close to a “fast food Italian restaurant” and was probably are least liked meal. We decided to make it better by going back up the main drain to get gelato.

With our bellys full we still had about an hour to kill. We didn’t have enough time to go see/do anything else so we walked close to our meet spot and found a church that had some seating in a courtyard. We sat and relaxed and enjoyed the sun shining on our face. Tom fell asleep and I was very close to it as well. What kept me awake was the fear that we would sleep through our meet time.

Giuseppi was right on time and we got in his car and headed off. As we got talking we found that he is a one man tour company. I would have never guessed it from his website. It was nice to have the personal tour. He took us to the North side of Mt. Etna where we stopped to see the lava flow of 2002 and he gave us a history of the eruptions and multiple craters that we could see. We stopped one more time before the hike to pick up snowshoes.

The next stop we got bundled up and put on our snowshoes and began the easy hike to the Monti Sartorius crater. The temperature was probably around 32 degrees and didn’t feel too bad. We stopped several times for him to point out plants and other facts. We then hiked up the crater where the wind had really picked up and made it super cold. All in all the hike probably took about an hour and a half. We could see the ash cloud coming from another crater on the top of Mt. Etna throughout the hike, and that was pretty neat.

After the hike Giuseppi took us to a cave that was formed from the flow of lava. It was getting dark but we had helmets and head lamps so we carefully made our way down into the cave. It was quite pretty as there were many icicles. We didn’t walk the path of the tube and headed back out, which now was completely dark outside. We headed back to the car and made the drive back to Taormina.

We said our goodbyes to Giuseppi and hiked the main drag once again. We found a restaurant our AirBnB host recommended and enjoyed a meal of veal scaloppini in a lemon sauce (excellent!) and tortolloni with shrimp and truffles. The tortolloni was good, but not anywhere as close to the veal.

Tom and I have been very fortunate to see the volcanoes in Hawaii and Iceland and I was happy to add this to the list. It was a unique experience to hike in snowshoes. Tom probably would have chosen to do something else, but he appreciated the one-on-one tour and Giuseppi’s extensive knowledge.

Stats of the Day

Geocaches: 1 big redemption!!
Steps Walked: 11,806
Temperature: Really cold on Mt. Etna and quite a bit cooler in the city.