Mount Etna Sleeps Awhile

The drive from the port city of Messina to Taormina on Sicily’s eastern coastline is picturesque, even in the pouring rain. Messina on the island of Sicily is akin to a football on the toe of the Italian mainland, just two miles away at its narrowest point and yet Sicily has a completely different feel from the rest of Italy.

Medieval Taormina is lined with jagged cactus-covered cliffs and on clear days the snow capped peaks of Mount Etna are visible with white puffs of smoke rising against the blue sky - a sight we had to imagine on a rainy day with thunder and lightning performing above us as we stood on the grounds of Teatro Greco.

The ancient Greeks were well known for seeking out spectacular locations to stage their performances and the site they selected on Taormina’s hillside was no exception. Built in 300 BC, the acoustics are so good that a whisper on what was the stage can be heard in the last rows of the terraces. A music and arts festival takes place at the site today with such luminaries as Elton John and Jose Carreras having performed there.

The winding cobblestoned alleyways of Taormina are fun to wander and as a marzipan devotee the almond based specialties sold in the bakeries are not to be missed - or the chocolate and ricotta filled cannoli. That, and a hearty cappuccino in a sidewalk café, and who cares about the inclement weather.

Driving up the lower slopes of Mount Etna, we stopped at the mountainside village of Zafferana and enjoyed a Sicilian lunch of bruscetta, pasta and cassata, pondering why our pasta just doesn’t taste as good as that.

The striking thing about Mount Etna is the number of communities nestled on its hillsides with old lava flows all around them. Life goes on normally, the citrus and olive groves flourishing in the rich soil - normally that is until the giant roars. One of the world’s major active volcanoes, Mount Etna is the largest and highest in Europe at almost 11,000 feet, erupting 12 times in the last thirty years, most recently in 2006.

The rings of vegetation change markedly as one ventures up the mountainside. Vineyards and citrus groves give way to pines and then to broom and lichen, the latter having made its home on the ancient lava rock. The road snakes it way upward through the lava fields until eventually a series of dormant craters at the 6000 foot mark of Crateri Silvestri is reached.

The experience of walking the lava dunes and what appears as a moonscape of dead craters is a little eerie as one considers fleetingly whether or not Mount Etna plans to make some kind of statement in the very near future.

Fortunately for us, today would not be the day.