lavenderhopeblog

Hello again and I'm finally back after my week away in Sicily. I had a great time and am now here to tell you all about my adventures, which as you will have read from the title, included climing a volcano! Well, climbing might not be the most accurate word... but it sounds more impressive if I say that. So the day started off with an hour long coach journey to the volcano - which I have to say wasn't the highlight of the trip. When we got there, the first thing I noticed was the smoke coming out of the top of the volcano, which immediately alarmed my younger sister who thought that the volcano was erupting and that we were all about to come to a grisly end. After assuring her that we were going to survive the trip, we began the ascent up the volcano. First things first, we got into a cable cart. After watching the movie Frozen (and no, not the Disney animated musical, the horror movie), I was a little weary at first. - If you've seen the movie then you'll know what I'm talking about. To sum it up, three students get trapped on a ski lift (similar thing) and have to jump down to survive, I'm not going to spoil the movie for you but some of the characters don't have the most pleasant of deaths. Anyway, after again telling myself and my sister that the cable cart was not going to break or fall off the wire, I began to relax and enjoy the beautiful scenery. Despite this, I couldn't quite help being reminded of my geography gcse days, when we studied Volcanos, days I wouldn't mind forgetting. When we got off the cable cart, a jeep took us to the top of the volcano. Sadly we couldn't get close enough to peer into the crater at the top, although you could if you chose to walk right up there. If you know me however, I'm not the most sporty of people and for obvious reasons, Volcano's aren't exactly flat, so I chose to look at it from a distance. We did however see some people who were climbing the whole volcano from bottom to top, which was very impressive as that's not an easy task. I'll insert a picture of the volcano below. The temperatures up there were also surprisingly warm, despite beforehand being told to bring a warm jacket as it would be cold at the top. Obviously it would depend on the day that you went up, but on the particular day that we did, we were fortunate enough to have good weather and the sky was clear of clouds which meant we got a good view of the island below us. I'd recommend the tour to anyone thinking about doing it, however it is a bit on the expensive side for what it is and the time that you get to spend up there. And if you're looking for a challenge or training for an event, then maybe climbing it would be for you! Let me know in the comments if you've ever done this excursion up Etna or if you're thinking about it. 

Lots of love

Lavender xx