On Etna’s northern slope near Randazzo, Grotta del Gelo is a 120-metre lava tube formed during the volcano’s 1614–24 eruption, with a naturally ventilated interior that remains below freezing year-round. Ice stalactites, stalagmites and columns make it what is considered the southernmost glacier in Europe and the northern hemisphere, although its ice mass has been declining since the 1980s.
Mount Etna is one of the world’s most active and iconic volcanoes, rising above Sicily’s eastern coast as the highest mountain on a Mediterranean island. Its almost continuous activity has shaped an exceptional landscape of summit craters, cinder cones, lava flows, lava caves and the Valle de Bove, while providing an unusually long and well-documented record of volcanism.
Gran Cratere della Fossa is a dramatic, 500-metre-wide volcanic crater rising to 386 metres above Vulcano, with active fumaroles, hissing steam vents and vivid yellow sulphur deposits around its ochre-toned interior. The trail from Porto di Levante leads to sweeping views across the Aeolian archipelago, with Mount Etna and Sicily’s northern coast visible on clear days.