Sicily Guide

My friend, Franca Calderone, is a professional photographer in Sicily. Here are some beautiful pics of her last trip to Mount Etna. Absolutely gorgeous!

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I’m standing on top of Mount Etna. I hadn’t really thought about what it would be like to stand on top of an active volcano.

I’d just casually thought: “Oh well, here I am in Sicily, I’d better go see Mt Etna.”

It’s bloody cold. I’d been warned about that. Still it comes as a surprise just how wintry it is up here. After all, when we left Catania at 8am it was shaping up to be a hot sunny typically Sicilian autumn day.

Read more at the Tasmanian Sunday

The Etna volcano in Sicily rumbled back to life on Tuesday with a “seismic event” followed by a burst of ash, volcanologists said three days after minor eruptions shook the cone.

A “seismic event provoking a strong explosion was recorded Tuesday at 0424 GMT (6:42 am local) in parts of the peak of the volcano,” the National Geophysics and Vulcanology Institute in Sicily’s Catania region said in a statement.

The explosion on Etna, Europe’s tallest active volcano at 3,295 metres (10,810 feet), was followed by a rain of ash on the southeast crater, “where significant gas emissions are occurring,” the statement said.

The institute dispatched experts on Tuesday to the site, but “the phenomenon currently represents no danger to people or property,” it said.

Saturday’s eruption, accompanied by streams of lava, was also at the volcano’s southeast crater.

The last eruption of Mount Etna was in November 2007, two months after another eruption forced a temporary closure of nearby Catania airport due to flowing lava and clouds of ash.

The last major eruption was in 2001.

Source AFP

A friend sent us this image from Mount Etna. I love the blue of the sky. Thanks, Franca!

Reuters reported that Mount Etna started erupting again. Europe’s tallest and most active volcano spewed out lava late on Tuesday in its latest spectacular eruption.

Sparks lit the night sky and a small stream of lava was flowing down the volcano into an uninhabited valley but there was no danger to villages lower down on the slopes, officials said.

The wind blew volcanic ash onto several villages and officials said the airport of Catania, a city at the base of the volcano, would be closed during the night as a precaution.

Etna erupts regularly but usually causes little damage to inhabited areas.

Read more about Mount Etna
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Technorati Tags [ mount etna | sicily | sicily’s volcano ]

The Sicilian volcano, Mount Etna, is erupting again. The lava flow goes slowly as typical of the volcano and does not endanger the villages nearby, according to the local Civil Protection officers.Mount Etna (also known locally as Mongibeddu in Sicilian and Mongibello in Italian) is an active volcano on the East coast of Sicily, close to Messina and Catania. It is the largest volcano in Europe, currently standing about 10,991 ft (3,350 m) high, though it should be noted that this varies with summit eruptions (the mountain is 71 ft (21,6 m) lower now than it was in 1865). It is the highest mountain in Italy south of the Alps. Etna covers an area of 460 square miles (1190 km²). This makes it by far the largest of the three active volcanoes in Italy, being nearly three times the height of the next largest, Mount Vesuvius. (Wikipedia)

Check out images from live webcams and past eruption videos at VolcanoEtna.com.

Technorati Tags [ etna | mount etna | sicilian volcano | volcano | lava | sicily | volcanoetna ]