Sicily

Our house/apartment near Catania is a two bedroomed, air conditioned, free internet, smart TV dream place and with a washing machine too!.  A perfect place apart from the  initial poor reception of Rai 3, the channel that has the Tour de France on and a rather strange smell in the kitchen! however until the TV was fixed  we watched the tour on live streaming  and ignored the smell😉.

The ferry over  was smooth sailing in all ways..no need to book, one every 30 minutes, for us it was just a 10 minute wait on arrival, and not overly expensive.  We managed to get within coo-ee of the house before having to ring for guidance and then after being shown around went out to the nearest supermarket to load up for a week of healthy eating.

We had no special plan for the week apart from Etna..first riding and then later driving and going up as far as we could (definitely NOT the 5 hour walk though!).  Oh..and avoiding Taormina!!

So map studying took place and the next day, up bright and early, we set off.  close to 1 hour later and 500m higher we finally got to the base of the climb, by which time I was already somewhat tired and told Alex, I'd not make the top.  He was to go up and find me on his way down, which is exactly what happened.

 The next day we drove up to the highest point we could, took the funicular, then a bus and finally a walk around a crater.  This particular crater is 20 years old,with 20 metres of volcanic debris; the steam emitting from it in places makes for a great  hand warmer!  The most recent activity (2017) was of a lesser amount and that debris is already cold right through.

by the time we got to the far ridge we were in a bit of a white out

the volcano equivalent of graffiti or leaving a padlock

different colour=different minerals

seen from the road...on the way up/down

Etna seen from  the north side north:

bit of snow still there and locals use the stone for walls,houses..everything

the following day we went to Castelmola..sadly Etna was under clouds so we didn't get the reported "eye popping" views.  Castelmola is above Taormina..the latter being a tourist trap++ great for visiting in either the early hours of the day or, as I did years ago, in early May