Mt. Etna Hill Climb

We set out for Mt. Etna today only to discover that the bus does not run on Sunday!


We met up with 2 young Chinese students and pooled our bargaining skills to get a ‘taxi’ to the funicular for not much more than the price of the return bus.

For the 55 km trip we were in the hands of Speedy Gonzales who in his younger days may have been a member of the Ferrari racing team. It was the Etna Hill Climb on 3 cylinders! We whipped around the roundabouts, shot through red lights and then started up the hill climb proper. We skidded around the lava flows, passed the Italian cycling team and just pipped the goggomobile, a vespa and a lamborghini across the line!

The mountain was rather stark with the road cutting through the lava flows from the 2002 eruption. Eventually we arrived at the base station for the funicular which was nearly 2000 metres above sea level and set off for the top station where we transferred to small 4 wheel drive buses to take us up to the crater at 3000 metres.

It was a really clear day and we could see practically the whole of Sicily laid out before our eyes. There was no lava flowing – last flow was 2 months ago but we could see gas coming from several holes. We walked around the lunar landscape and felt lava from the 2002 eruption – it was still warm! There was snow on the ground but lava takes about 15 years to cool

We retraced our steps until we met with our driver and set off on the downhill run. The accompaniment was the smell of burning rubber and the brakes were like afterburners. As we alighted, Catherine from Shanghai said "Boy that was scarey!"

We are now back safely in Catania and have completed a tour round all the Catania highlights – on foot! We didn’t dare risk another taxi.

Here we are at the crater.

Panorama of the Mt. Etna crater.

This house was buried in the eruption of 2002.