The 2002 Craters on Etna North: a 7.2 km Flow and One Hotel Roof Left Showing

Ufficio Guide Vulcanologiche Etna Nord, Via Provenzana, 35, Linguaglossa

The meeting point is in the car park near the chairlift, which runs at Etna Nord in winter. The bar is the second of the four buildings in the car park. Note that the meeting point is the "Chiosco Bar Mareneve", not the "Chiosco Bar Etna Nord".

Piano Provenzana

Piano Provenzana sits on the north side of Etna, reachable by private or rental car along fully paved public roads. The October 2002 eruption remade this place. It destroyed the original facilities and left the lava field that now surrounds the pine forest, which is what makes the area of historic interest and not only scenic. There are souvenir shops, cafés and bars for breakfast, lunch or coffee, and places to refill a water bottle. In winter it works as a ski resort; in summer it is where the guided hikes and excursions start. The parking areas marked in blue take cars and camper vans. If you have booked a tour, the volcanological guide meets you at the on-site meeting points. Piano Provenzana is less crowded than the other Etna stations, which is most of its appeal.

Costo extra

Mount Etna

A guided hike on the wild, less touristic north side of Etna, the highest active volcano in Europe. The walk crosses the 7.2 km lava flow of the 27 October 2002 eruption, where hotels, shops, restaurants and a large car park lie buried, with only the roof of one hotel still visible. Then through forest to the 1911 and 1923 flows and a chain of 1911 craters, whose shafts drop between 7 and 40 metres, and up the crest of the huge 2002 eruptive fracture, a canyon strewn with volcanic bombs, as far as the vent that produced the destructive flow and the other large explosive mouths at 2,100 m. The descent goes down soft ash channels, through beech forest and ski slopes, back to the start. About 5 km round trip, roughly 300 m of ascent and descent, 2.5 to 3 hours.

Piano Provenzana

The walk finishes back at Piano Provenzana, at 1,800 metres. Coming back to it after crossing the 2002 flow changes how the place reads: the bars, the shops and the car park you left three hours earlier stand at the edge of the field that buried the ones which were here before. There are cafés and bars for lunch or coffee, souvenir shops, and water to refill bottles. The blue-marked parking takes cars and camper vans, and in winter the same ground works as a ski resort. Of the Etna stations this is the quiet one, which is the reason people come up the north side instead of the south.