Etna trip
Etna is the highest active vulcano in Europe on the east coast of Sicily, about 30 km from Catania. The height of Etna is ca. 3326 m, but it varies with summit eruptions. The word Etna comes from Greek and can be translated as
“I burn“ .
. In the Greek mythology was believed that the god Zeus buried a hundred headed monster Typhon under the vulcano. When Typhon is angry, there are erruptions from Etna.
Since 2013 Etna is in the UNESCO´s World Heritage List for its geological pecularities of planetary relevance.
Its first eruptions occurred about 570,000 years ago, The current Valle del Bove, originated 9200 years ago, Today the summit area consists of 4 summit craters, the Central one, the West Chasm or Bocca nuova (new mouth) , the North sub-terminal crater and the Southeast sub-terminal crater apparatus.
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Etna dominates the skyline of Sicily. You can see it also from the windows of our partner school I.I.C. C.Marchesi. Our trip to Etna was planned on Thursday, 28.11.2019, but on Tuesday 26.11.2019 we visited INGV Catania( The Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia).
Our guide there was Boris Behnke.His lecture about Etna was very impressive. We also had the opportunity to get to know the way the volcanologists work in the institute.
Mount Etna errupts on average once a year.The erruptions are relatively harmless. The biggest erruption in modern history was in 1669 . Noxious fumes and stream of lava killed about 20.000 people and destroyed a large part of Catania.Etna is also the vulcano with the longest record of erruptions. New research suggest that Etna is slowly moving into the sea.
Living next to a vulcano could be dangerous, but it has also a lot of advantages, for example tThe soil surrounding the vulcano is unique. It is extremely fertile and there are very good conditions for growing grapes, citrus fruit, pistachios and other fruit and vegetables.We went to to Etna from Mascalucia on Thursday by bus to the Rifugio Sapienza car park. This is the highest point you can drive to. There are also gift shops, a restaurant and a hotel. We walked to the craters Silvestri which are two inactive craters formed as a result of Etna eruption in 1892. It is situated at about 1900 m above sea level. It was very cold on this day on Etna. The wind was so strong, we hardly could walk. The landskape aroud the craters is very impressive. There were no plants to see around the craters, It is formed by rocks of orange-black color, the edge of the peak is formed by lava stones. The lunar landscape around us was like from another world. At this height the landscape is almost without vegetation, only somewhere we could see grassy vegetation. On the ground we noticed ladybirds that have no natural enemies in this area. Our tour lasted about 3 hours.After lunch we went back to Mascalucia. In the evening we had a farewell party and on Friday we went back to Slovakia. We are convinced that life at the foot of the volcano is possible as long as one behaves reasonably, does not take unnecessary risks and follows all the rules.
We came back full of great experiences and positive energy. The Erasmus + project allowedto get to know all the negatives and positives of living near volcanoes. The Italians have won our hearts with their hospitality, cordiality and way of life.