Day 11 - Tuesday November 4, 2025 - Mt Etna & Taormina

By Ellen Outten

 

Mount Etna - all of this is lava that has flown down , well over the height of our bus.

We set off at 8:15 am this morning for the drive up to Mt Etna.  It is one of the tallest active volcanoes in Europe and the tallest in Italy south of the Alps.  Mount Etna is almost always in a constant state of activity.  Since 2000, there have been ten eruptions, the last in February 2021.

We spent an hour at the highest level permitted by cars, approximately 6,000 feet high.   Those that wanted, could take a few different hikes wrong the ridge line.  I stayed put.  Needless to say, the temperature was about 50 degrees.

Pictures as we rode up the switchbacks on the way to the craters of Mount Etna.








Once parked, we were looking at this landscape.










Our next stop was lunch at a lovely residence and restaurant of two sisters.

The first course (no picture) was more than two could eat. The second course was a meatball cooked with lemon leaves infusing lemon into the flavor of the meatball.  

Dessert was a flan of sorts.  The restaurant was in the middle of a lemon orchard and smelled like home in the spring.








We left lunch and drove about 20 minutes to the town of Reposto.  There we had to change from our 50 passenger bus to a 25 passenger bus as the town of Taoromina has narrow streets and large buses can’t fit nor possibly make turns.  

It’s a beautiful very modern hotel in the middle of this tourist center known for some beautiful landscaping and the beaches on the Mediterranean.  This town is literally suspended between rocks and the sea with the Mediterranean coast on one side and Mount Etna in the background.

Dinner was on our own and the prices of the food in the restaurant was crazy, so we wandered out, and downhill to a restaurant.  The food was good but the walk UPHILL wore off some of the calories.  

Simple lasagna for dinner.  This is the part I left!

Only 5,600 steps today, but all uphill.



Comments

  1. pat McCarthyNovember 4, 2025 at 11:19 AM

    Awesome pics once again . It's amazing all the walking you are doing- I could never do it

    ReplyDelete

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