Page 324 - The Rough Guide of Sicily

ACCOMMODATION AND EATING: ETNA NORD

Rifugio Ragabo Pineta Bosco Ragabo 095 647 841, ragabo.it. Simple, cosy pine-
wood rifugio-hotel, high up on Etna near Linguaglossa, which makes a perfect base
for an active mountain holiday – winter or summer – with cosy doubles and family

rooms and a pleasant restaurant serving hearty mountain fare that is open to all. Half
board is available (€50 per person); otherwise rates include breakfast. Closed Nov.
€70

Etna Sud

More built-up and touristy than the north slope, Etna Sud offers the easiest approach
to the volcano via public transport, with buses connecting Catania with the Rifugio
Sapienza, at the foot of the cable car to the summit and at the end of the negotiable

road up the south side of Etna. The ride up Etna to the rifugio throws up some truly
bizarre scenery: the green foothills give way to wooded slopes, then to bare, black-
and-grey seas of volcanic debris, spotted with the hardy endemic plants – yellow-
green spino santo and Etna violets – that are the only things to grow on the heights of
the volcano. The most recent lava streams lie to the right of the road, where you’ll
also see earlier spent craters, grass-covered on the lower reaches and no more than
black pimples further up.

THE ASCENT OF ETNA FROM RIFUGIO SAPIENZA

From Rifugio Sapienza, there are two ways up the volcano. The Funivia dell’Etna

cable car (daily: summer 9am–5.30pm, winter 9am–3.30pm; €17.00 one-way,
€29.50 return; funiviaetna.com) reaches an altitude of 2500m at Monte
Montagnola, from where SITAS minibuses leave for the crater (April–Oct daily
9am–5pm, weather permitting; 095 914 141). The total journey (cable car plus
minibus) takes around 2.5hr and costs €57.50. When the wind is up, or conditions
are otherwise difficult, the entire journey is undertaken from Rifugio Sapienza by

minibus.

Conditions permitting, it’s also possible to walk to Etna’s summit from Rifugio
Sapienza, for which you need to contact Etna Touring ( 095 791 8000 or 347
783 8799, etnatouring.com). Expeditions without an authorized guide are
extremely unwise.

Torre del Filosofo

In the autumn of 2013, as this guide went to press, eruptions from a crater in the
southeast destroyed the so-called Torre del Filosofo, a tower that was said to have
been the observatory of Empedocles, though more likely to have been a memorial built