Etna 3000

Mount Etna

Once on-board of our 4×4 jeeps, we will make our way towards Etna’s hill. We will leave the wonderful “Riviera dei limoni” (Lemons’ coast), to approach Etna’s villages. We will then get on the road that leads through the volcano’s slopes, crossing old mulattiere (ancient mule drivers’ roads) and coalmen paths, we are soon at about 1000 mt altitude where a protected area of 720km² begins. We also come across cold and dried lava flows that, like black highways, tear the mountainside. Surrounded by uncontaminated greenery¹, we can enjoy the view of chestnut trees, pines, oaks, beeches as well as endemic plants like Etna’s birch and Etna’s brooms2. Eruptive cones, lava flows, lava valley stand out in front of our eyes, testifying the volcano’s incessant eruption activity that carves out its own shape since more than 500.000 years. We will get into a fantastic Nature trail, inside the Etna Park, heading towards the craters. We will arrive on the top of a lateral crater, created by an eruption with the typical buttons’ line progress, called “bottoniera”. What is a crater? It is a pyroclastic slagheap that has been thrown out from the volcanic shaft and, once placed around the eruptive vent, creates a cone. Once we get to the edge of the lateral crater, in the exact point where incandescent lava used to come out from volcano slope1, we will explain to you the features of Etna’s eruptions. You will have the opportunity to admire all of the different colours that lava turns into, as a beautiful reflection of a rainbow, and experience first hand all of the different kinds of consistency of pyroclastic rocks. Let’s deeply penetrate in the heart of the wood to discover what’s hiding below the volcanic hard surface. Suddenly a crevice in the ground appears by our eyes: one of the about 190 Etna lava flow caves. We start our underground adventure: leaving the surface we enter into the mountain deepness to discover its most hidden secrets, visiting a lava flow cave1. After a lengthy exploration of Mt. Etna, we will have reached the end of our adventure together. Once down, we will cross the Etna Park again (Parco dell’Etna), and, going through antique lava flows, we will be going back home.