Bill versus the volcano (IV)
Fourth day of the trip, and time to start doing what we came for, namely hiking into some weird places -- like, say, the crater of an active volcano.
When last we saw our heroes, they were luxuriating at the Villa Diodato, a very pleasant, rather expensive hotel in the Sicilian resort town of Taormina. I recommend this place; it's outside the hubbub of the town center, yet still convenient to it, and comfortable, with a great buffet breakfast. By the time we got up this morning, I was pretty well over the jet lag as a result of a particularly restful night's sleep. (Emily, the boys, and WGMIL were maybe a bit less so, but still, progress was being made.) Following breakfast we wandered off for a look at the Teatro Greco, of which I have a confession to make: the photo in yesterday's blog entry was taken this morning, as the previous day, I'd been too lazy to join Emily and WGMIL in going over there.
The Teatro Greco is basically what it sounds like: ruins of an outdoor amphitheater dating back to ancient Greece, albeit with quite a bit of not-quite-as-ancient Roman construction added -- in fact, most of what you see is Roman, rather than Greek. Somewhat more jarringly, at least to the American eye, there is also quite a bit of "modern" construction added as well. including a modern stage with steel planking, etc., piled right on top of the ancient one. Why "jarringly"? Because ancient sites in the United States, to the extent that we have them (remember, the Teatro Greco was about 1500 years old when the civilizations that gave us Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon were flourishing), tend to be protected from modern construction with the utmost ferocity. Yes, many of them have been excavated for scientific -- and sometimes pot-hunting -- purposes, and then reconstructed to some extent (negligible at MV and Chaco, more at some other places). But the ruins themselves are sacrosanct apart from stabilization, and you don't see 20th-century engineering plopped down on top of them. I think, however, that we Americans are the outliers here. For one thing, in the US, ruins on the Mesa Verde/Chaco scale are few and far between, while in Italy, things on the Teatro Greco scale are not. For another, there is an enormous difference in population density between Sicily and the southwestern US. Even in a place as touristy as Taormina, modern dwellings, and modern people, are jammed together tightly, and space for visitor centers, etc., is really at a premium. When the point of interest is surrounded by the miles of nothingness that characterize MV and Chaco, that's hardly a problem, and the authorities can keep the ruins intact. Anyway, it was interesting to see cultural differences at work here.
After this visit it was time to go back to the hotel, check out, and head for the port town of Milazzo, jumping-off point for the Aeolian Islands where we would spend the next several days. Of Milazzo itself, not much to say; we just caught a quick, bland patio lunch and boarded a SIREMAR hydrofoil for the island of Vulcano and the start of our Volcano Discovery fun. Vulcano is a small island (total surface area only about 20 square kilometers) with a permanent population of only about 500, although the number of people on the island swells dramatically during the summer months due to its beaches, mud baths, etc. Our mid-May visit found the tourism starting to ramp up, but still at quite a low level, and on our hike, we nearly had the place to ourselves.
What hike, you say? What place? Well, that's where the fun begins. Our goal was Gran Cratere, at the top of the mountain that gives Vulcano its name -- and gives volcanoes world-wide their name. The volcano of Vulcano has been active through most of recorded history; its most recent eruption was in 1890, and as we'll see, there is still plenty of thermal activity around. It is very much an "active" volcano, albeit not a currently-erupting one. Its crater is reached by a straightforward trail that starts fairly close to the harbor where the SIREMAR hydrofoil docks. We were all amused at the signage at the trailhead; our grasp of Italian was too poor to allow direct translation, but I'm pretty sure that the gist of it was "WARNING! If you step off this trail, you will surely be captured and eaten by Typhon or a hydra or one of those other mythological monsters that dwell in the subterranean realms below your feet! Enter at your own risk!" Well, not really, but the "enter at your own risk" part was pretty clear... A few photos of the hike up:
Hiking up Vulcano 
Crater of Vulcano 
Vulcano inner crater
One of the advantages of doing a trip like this with a guide outfit is that a good guide can help you see things you'd miss on your own -- and Marco is a good guide. He is also a superb nature photographer who has published his own book of the photographic wonders of the Italian volcanoes (of which more later), and also collaborates with other volcanologist-photographers on what's today's Web Site du Jour: Stromboli On-Line, http://www.swisseduc.ch/stromboli/ -- some of the photos here will absolutely knock your socks off. We can't begin to match Marco's work, but one thing he did point out to us was the abundance of remarkable sulfur formations in the fumaroles around the rim of Gran Cratere. Here's a sample:
Sulfur on Vulcano
Notice the little orange dots left of the main rock. These are matchhead-size droplets of molten sulfur, something you can't find in very many places on earth that you can hike to. We'd have missed them if it hadn't been for Marco.
After circumnavigating this thing (and watching D make a little excursion to the crater bottom ... he's a little, well, crazy ...), it was back to sea level and our lodging for the night, the Hotel Conti, in a gorgeous setting overlooking one of Vulcano's beaches. The hotel is very attractive and the service attentive, but there was a big drawback that we didn't anticipate ... but that's for tomorrow.
