Etna
Three thousand three hundred metres of active volcano, and there is a cable car up it.
Etna is the highest active volcano in Europe and one of the most studied in the world. Its height changes with every eruption, and in recent years it has hovered around three thousand three hundred and fifty metres. It erupts often, almost always without endangering the villages, and the flows usually stop in the Valle del Bove, the great depression on the eastern flank.
A million people live around the volcano, and the lava has become building material: Catania is rebuilt in black lava stone, the field walls are of lava, and the vineyards on Etna grow on volcanic soil that gives wines unlike any others in Sicily.
How you go up
On the southern side you drive to the Rifugio Sapienza at nineteen hundred metres; from there a cable car goes to two thousand five hundred and guided four-wheel-drives go higher. Without going up you can walk round the Silvestri craters, which lie beside the car park and give the idea. On the northern side, from Piano Provenzana, you climb among the pines and the snow lasts longer.
High up the weather changes quickly and it is cold even in August: you need a jacket, and trainers do not last long on the lava sand. Before setting out it is worth checking the level of activity, because during eruptions the high ground is closed.