Sicily 2025

On our first day after a very early morning (thank you to parents for dropping everyone at college so early!), we arrived at Catania airport in Sicily, where we met our coach and drove straight to the Alcantara Gorge, Botanic and Geological Park. This incredible site featured towering basalt columns which formed when lava rapidly cooled in contact with cold water. A river has since cut its way down through weaknesses in the basalt to form a gorge, with waterfalls and incredible views. This was a lovely place to cool off and explore after a long journey. It was then back on the coach and off to our hotel in Letojanni, which was right on the beach, for some dinner and a well needed early night.

Our second day was particularly volcanic, and after an early start we arrived as Messina Port, where we boarded a very speedy hydrofoil ferry to the island of Vulcano, just off the coast of Sicily. This incredible island is dominated by a major volcano (Vulcano), after which all other volcanoes in the world are named! Vulcano last erupted in the 1890s, and is incredibly well monitored. The risk of eruption is currently low, but this is not to say the volcano is dormant – it still produces lots of (smelly) sulphur dioxide emissions which can occasionally close the summit. Luckily for us, conditions were perfect and the weather was excellent, and we met our local guide who took us on a guided hike to the very top of the volcano, with a panoramic view of the stunning surrounding islands and the crater of the volcano. From the top, we could see most of the Aeolian islands in the distance, including Stromboli volcano, which was in the process of erupting! After taking many pictures and soaking in the beautiful views, we descended the volcano, via an interesting and very fast route which our guide chose for us – we got down very quickly, just with shoes full of volcanic sand (an excellent souvenir!). After the hike, it was time for a bit of relaxation, and we spent some free time exploring the volcanic black sand beaches, swimming in the warm waters of the Mediterranean and treating ourselves to some arancini and granita (a local iced slush drink). After a fantastic day, we boarded the hydrofoil ferry again and headed back to mainland Sicily, where after an eventful journey we made it back to the hotel and some tasty pasta dinner.

The next day was Mount Etna day – something we had all been greatly looking forward to! To begin with, we travelled to the site of an old lava flow from Mount Etna, which in the 1990s threatened the town of Zafferana Etnea. Interestingly, this was also the site at which one of the few recorded instances of humans modifying a lava flow occurred – when Zafferana Etnea, with a population of 10,000, was threatened by the oncoming lava, authorities sprung into action, trying to divert the lava to protect the town. By building an earthen barrier, using explosives to modify lava tubes, and building artificial channels to divert flow, around 70% of the lava was diverted, saving the town. We explored the cooled lava field, observing a few houses that didn’t make it and were overcome by what was the biggest lava flow from Etna in 300 years. This was a great location to get a sense of the true scale of the hazards that Etna can produce. After this, we drove a little further up Etna, stopping at a honey factory on the way. Here we viewed some of the bee hives, and sampled some delicious local honey, with many different flavours, plus some local olive oil and other delicacies. Then it was onwards with our journey up Mount Etna, which takes a while considering we needed to get from sea level all the way up to 3200m high at the very top of the volcano. After leaving the coach halfway up the volcano, we hopped on a cable car, then into some fantastic 4x4 jeeps which took us all the way to the summit. The terrain is very rough so the jeeps were definitely necessary! Once at the top, the temperature was around 0 degrees due to the high elevation of Mount Etna, which was a bit of an adjustment as we had just come from ~30 degrees at the bottom of the volcano. Luckily for us, a recent eruption just 10 days before meant that some areas of the ground were still warm from the cooling lava, so we stopped to warm our hands on the ground in a few places. With a trusty guide taking us around the summit of the volcano, we saw some incredible landscapes which were very stark and barren, and walked on freshly created, 10-day old ground. We saw lava bombs from the recent eruption, still warm, collected rock samples and saw some truly unforgettable sights. Then, it was back down the volcano via the jeeps, cable car and coach again, and back to our hotel, where we had some free time to warm up and swim in the sea at the beach opposite our hotel. It was lovely to see almost all of our students in the sea, relaxing and warming up after an incredible day.

Finally, our last day in Sicily had come, and unfortunately we had to adapt our plans on this day, as the first BIG rain of the season hit Sicily after a very dry summer, with the most torrential rain we have ever seen pouring down across the island for around 5 hours. We made it to Taormina, a beautiful historic town which houses an incredible ancient Greek / Roman amphitheatre, and we had a short tour around this before the heavens opened. With rivers forming in the streets and everyone completely soaked, even with decent raincoats on, we had to cut our tour short, spending a bit of time in Taormina getting some food / souvenirs, then making the decision to cut out our last activity and get everyone dry. The students were absolute troopers in the rain, and we managed to get everyone changed and found a mall to hide in, before we then headed to the airport for our evening flight back home.

Despite the rain on the last day, we had an excellent trip, and we are very proud of our students for always being on time, and being really well behaved throughout. We have many incredible memories of the trip, and lots of extra tectonics knowledge now! Now to plan our next trip…