Hello again in my travel stories today I would like to mention a little about my trip to ethne, an active volcano in Italy, we went there with a jeep guide to the foot of the volcano, then listening to his stories we walked on the volcano itself, of course, in places permitted to do so, and not where there is still lava or are vibrations of the earth and is dangerous.
Unfortunately when we went there the volcano was suspiciously more active than usual so we could not enter the cave that was formed there during one of the eruptions, but it's nothing, we learned about the nature of volcanoes, but I will not tell you about that because it's not interesting for everyone so I will focus on nice pictures.
And now some facts about this volcano to give you an idea what this volcano is and how big it is.
Etna - an active stratovolcano in Italy, on the east coast of Sicily. Europe's highest and largest volcanic cone.
Etna covers an area of at least 1250 km². The volcano began to form about 500 thousand years ago. The first records of eruptions date back to about 1500 BC. It is estimated that there have been more than 200 eruptions since then. The current altitude is about 3357 meters above sea level. (volcanic activity causes changes in altitude)
Etna is one of the most active volcanoes in the world and poses a real threat to the inhabitants of the area. Its activity can be observed almost all the time in the form of escaping gases and steam, and during eruptions, the ejection of pyroclastic materials including volcanic bombs or ash.
The volcano region is inhabited by respectively:
at a distance of 5 km - 78 people;
at the distance of 10 km - 3291 people;
at a distance of 30 km - 1,016,540 people;
at the distance of 100 km - 3,052,770 people.
The most powerful eruption is considered to have lasted from March 11 to July 11, 1669, during which the volcano ejected huge amounts of lava (it covered an area of about 37 km²) and pyroclastic material. The lava covered about 16 km, destroying several villages along the way. It eventually reached the sea and Catania, partially destroying it. During this eruption, an attempt was made to change the course of the flowing lava by digging a trench; it was the first such attempt in the world.
Okay, so we're all educated now?So its time for a photos!
Well this vulcan is big you can see this from everywhere on catania:
even from the beach
It was too steep to get anywhere higher by car so this whole hill behind us was for us to climb if we wanted to see better views, of course we climbed it :D
It paid off,breathtaking view,this whole area you see here used to be covered with greenery. During one of the eruptions this whole area was scorched by lava and now it looks like this
We could also see one of the few craters on this volcano
My thoughts
To sum up, the trip to the volcano Etna was not the cheapest, but it was caused, of course, by the price of the guide, a ride from the hotel to the volcano itself, about an hour and a half, in my opinion it was worth spending a little more money :)