Page 329 - The Rough Guide of Sicily

like obstacle courses for adults and children (from age 2 and up) slung among the

trees. They also organize all manner of activities on and around Etna, including snow-
shoe trekking, whitewater rafting, potholing and jeep tours.

Randazzo

Great rivers of volcanic rubble clutter the slopes on all sides of RANDAZZO, the
closest town to the summit of Etna, just 15km away as the crow flies. Walls belonging
to former orchards or vineyards are occasionally visible through the black debris.
Despite its dangerous proximity, the town has never been engulfed, though an eruption
in 1981 came perilously close. Randazzo has not escaped entirely unscathed,
however: as one of the main forward positions of the German forces during their
defence of Sicily in 1943, the town was heavily bombed, and most of the lava-built
churches and palaces you’ll see here, originally dating from the wealthy thirteenth- to

sixteenth-century era, are the result of meticulous restoration. The result is a handsome
old centre, with enough to occupy a half-day’s exploration – and Randazzo is easily
the best place to break your Circumetnea trip if you fancy a night in the sticks.

In medieval times, three churches took turns to act as Randazzo’s cathedral, a sop to
the three parishes in town whose inhabitants were of Greek, Latin and Lombard origin.
The largest, Santa Maria, on the main Via Umberto I, is the modern-day holder of the

title, a severe Catalan-Gothic structure with a fine carved portal with vine decoration.
Further up the road, facing a small square, the blackened tower that forms part of the
old city walls is all that survives of Randazzo’s Castello Svevo, which did duty as a
prison from around 1500 until 1973.

Museo Vagliasindi

Via Castello 1 • Tues–Sun 9am–6pm • €2.60

Museo Vagliasindi holds a good collection of objects from a nearby Greek
necropolis, including wine jugs in the form of women’s heads, and a vessel in the
shape of a spunky little rat. Downstairs you’ll find ranks of dangling Sicilian puppets,
variously sporting armour, a velvet cloak or a deer-stalker cap – typically for eastern
Sicily, they are taller than the puppets you may have seen in Palermo. The museum’s

other rooms, including the bare, minuscule cells where inmates once rotted, display
agricultural tools and other rustic items.

THE WINES OF ETNA

Thanks to mineral-rich volcanic soil, an extremely low yield and a varied climate
(temperatures can range from 30°C to 0°C in a single day), the vineyards on Etna’s
foothills have the potential to produce some of Italy’s most interesting wines. They
were also some of the only vineyards in Europe to survive the phylloxera epidemic