Two cones of reddish scoria rise above Nicolosi that were not there before 1669: the Monti Rossi, 949 metres, built in a few weeks out of the lapilli of the most destructive eruption on written record at Etna. From that fissure, which opened at 850 metres, the lava took 122 days to reach the sea, burying farmland and villages and pushing as far as the walls of Catania. The priest Diego Pappalardo tried to divert it by breaking open the hardened flank of the flow, the first documented attempt anywhere to steer a lava stream; the people of the village the diversion would have hit drove him off with clubs, and the front went back to its old course. That is the southern flank in a sentence: the side of the volcano where eruptions and people have met most often.
What to see
Provincial road 92 climbs from Nicolosi through some twenty hairpins and ends at 1910 metres, on the forecourt of the Rifugio Sapienza. A few dozen metres from the car park are the Crateri Silvestri, two flank vents of the 1892 eruption that the Catania Alpine Club named after the volcanologist Orazio Silvestri: the rim of the lower one takes a quarter of an hour to walk, over lapilli that crunch like gravel, with a black funnel below you.
The cable car leaves from the same forecourt. It opened in 1966 and has been rebuilt several times, because lava demolished pylons and stations in 1971, in 1983 and in 2001; the present cabins date from 2004 and run up to 2504 metres. From there off-road vehicles and guided paths continue towards the summit area, which the INGV measured at 3403 metres in 2024 after a run of paroxysms: the figure changes from one eruption to the next. Around you the lava field is black and bare; lower down the broom, the woods and the dry-stone walls of the vineyards come back.
Visiting
From Catania to the Rifugio Sapienza is some forty kilometres of continuous climb; in winter the road may need chains and can close for snow, and in summer the forecourt fills with coaches from late morning. Going near the summit craters requires a licensed volcanological mountain guide, and access is cut back or suspended when activity picks up: the rules follow the volcano, not the calendar. Lower down you walk freely and without a ticket: the Crateri Silvestri, the paths through the pine wood of the Monti Rossi above Nicolosi, the recent flows along the provincial road. It is cold up there even in August, ten or fifteen degrees below the coast, and the wind rarely drops.
Our editors' tip
We go up early and do the opposite of what most people do: the Crateri Silvestri first, in the raking morning light that digs out every fold in the lava, then the cable car, then a stop in the pine wood of the Monti Rossi on the way down. Walking among pines grown on the scoria of 1669 is the quickest way to understand how fast Etna covers itself over again. Closed shoes, because the lapilli get in everywhere, and a windproof jacket even in high summer.
