Decorazioni

I've seen Etna from the south, the east and the north and today I got closer. It wasn't a great day to pick - our walk on the lava (hard - we didn't hike up to molten lava) was cut a bit short by rain. I'd saved this treat till my last full day in Sicily but probably should have taken a tour from Catania when the weather was better. It seems that the drama is better from that side too.

Anyway, we crunched across lava rock and saw holes (not craters) where lava had emerged many years ago - long, dangerous drops. Visiting the site of the 2002 eruption was very sobering - despite the fact that volcanic rock is very fertile, it takes hundreds of years for vegetation to re-establish itself and there were burnt trees strewn over the lava slopes as well as small pieces of the roof off a building that was destroyed. I was intrigued at the different colours of lava: black as I'd expected but also reddish where it contains iron and shiny where it contains aluminium. We were encouraged to look out for blue (cobalt) but didn't find any.

We also walked through a lava tube. When the lava flows down a slope very slowly it cools into a crust on the surface. The hot lava continues to flow in the centre until the eruption ends and the 'tunnel' empties. There are tunnels like this all over Etna. Lava stone is excellent at insulating and these tubes used to be used, pre-electricity, to store snow and ice until long after winter for use in fishing.

Our route back took us to the Alcantara gorges, also made out of lava but eroded smooth by the river water. We all got very wet wading further into the gorge for a better view. I knew we were likely to do this but infuriatingly left the light shoes I was happy to get wet and my lighter trousers back in the van. So tomorrow I'll be travelling in wet trousers...

Back in town I had a walk through the streets I'd missed yesterday and saw the outside of the medieval Corvaja Palace, the seat of the Sicilian parliament in the 15th century. I looked at yet another Odeon, partly built over by a church, the remains of which are open to anyone to walk in and clamber over. I still haven't got used to the density of surviving buildings from almost 2,000 years ago.In the Naumachia, the remains of an old Roman wall with huge niches that surrounded the Gymnasium, someone was having a loud, long and eloquent rant in a language I didn't understand. The person at the other end of the phone didn't have a chance to say a word and I was entranced by the music of the ranter's words - superb rhythm and lots of threes.

But my most fun find was this scooter and its garage in the painting style of this bit of Sicily. There are vibrant ceramics with intricate decoration every few shops and I watched someone painting incredible detail onto a ceramic head in the street this evening. This made me smile.

Somehow my extra walk swallowed up three hours and it was almost dark by the time I got back to eat and pack.

Extras
- hardened lava flow with dead trees
- snow on Etna
- Alcantara gorge - river-smoothed lava