Sicily: Etna and Surroundings

We spent the last 4 nights of the trip in Viagrande at the Relais San Giuliano hotel. This hotel is brand new and was really nice. The front desk staff was especially noteworthy - they helped us find restaurants, book dinners and wine tastings, find hikes, and just gave out tons of helpful information while we planned our days. We would tell them what we were looking for for dinner and they'd come back with a list of choices for us to look into and decide between.

The obligatory pictures of the hotel pool. The water was "refreshing". This was the only hotel that we stayed at that had poolside drink and food service, which we made use of a few days.



The slopes of Etna are known for their wine, so we naturally did a few wine tastings while in the area. The most notable winery, where we actually liked the wines, was Nicosia. This was about a 5 minute drive from our hotel so we went there for dinner one night and then went back again for a wine tasting. The location was beautiful, food was excellent, the waiter english-speaking and amazing, and we ended up buying some of their wines. They have very reasonably priced shipping to Germany so we didn't have to lug bottles back in our luggage.

Martin (who was not the DD) had himself a very generous wine tasting of 7 wines. He didn't like the red wines grown on Etna as much as the wines grown in southern Sicily. The wines from Etna are much more mineral-y, which for us works well for white wines but not for reds.



The view of Etna from the winery. The top was surrounded by clouds every day we were there except for the day we drove in. It may be harder to get a good picture of Etna than we had thought.



The other winery we tasted at was Gambino. This is one of the bigger wineries and they had a huge area which accommodated several large groups at a time for wine tastings. They also would feed you a small meal during your tasting, which I appreciated since I wasn't drinking the wines. Martin didn't like any of the wines there enough to buy them but the view we enjoyed during the tasting was really gorgeous, overlooking vineyards, mountains, and also the ocean.



The remnants of the meal and tasting.



There was a park with a "hill" just a 10-15 minute walk from our hotel, called Parco Monte Serra. The park had a playground, butterfly garden, and things for the kids to do. It also had a challenging (read: very steep with crumbling steps and no railing) ~350-step staircase from the top of which you could get an amazing view. We hiked up this twice during our 4 days here as it was really good exercise and you couldn't beat the views.

To get to the park, you had to walk up this road ... which is a legit road according to Sicilians and google maps. It's basically a pile of broken pottery and pieces of asphalt.



Some pictures of the staircase.



And the views from the top. I really liked this cloud hanging out over the ocean.



Again, Etna was always hidden by clouds.





There were paths at the top of the staircase and you could supposedly make your way down back to the bottom of the park again by taking them. We always just went back down the stairs to avoid the possibility of getting lost in the park and having to backtrack.



There was a festival in Viagrande the weekend we were there. It had something to do with wine. It was fun watching the little parade of horses through town. The guys in the carriages were playing catchy music as well. There was also a market set up in the town park and a lot of dancing and entertainment. It was neat that we just happened to be wandering through town during it.



We did, on our last day, drive up to the Etna base station at ~6,000'. The top of Etna is ~11,000' but it varies from year to year due to eruptions. It's one of the most active volcanoes in the world, and the most active in Europe. Anybody can drive to the base station and then take a cable car up near the top, followed by a jeep the last few hundred meters up to the top (you can also hike any part of it, though you might need a qualified guide for the top). Of course the cable car and jeep do cost money though I'm not sure how much as we didn't use them. We just wandered around the crater at the base station and enjoyed the view.

Since we were above the clouds that always seemed to surround Etna, we were actually able to get some pictures of it!



The extinct crater we walked around.



Some other random views not looking at Etna. It was a really gorgeous morning.



And, in case you were wondering, there is indeed a full bar at the base station! So you can sit and have yourself a nice drink ... with 89543789543 other tourists.