Train Ride around the Volcano

Okay, I really am going to talk about going around the mountain on a train but first I need to make a suggestion. If you ever want a really great winter “drink” you should go to the store and buy the kind of deep chocolate pudding that you actually have to cook. Follow the directions except add about a fourth cup more milk and when it’s mixed together and cooked, pour it into four cups and call a friend or two to share it with. Remember, it must be served hot and eaten with a spoon. Wow! To add a bit of pizzazz you can put a touch of flavoring in it as soon as you take it off the stove, ameratto, almond, let your imagination dictate what you want. I can’t imagine anything ruining the taste.

We got up really early last Saturday and drove to the base to catch the bus for our Circumetnea (pronounced: cheer-come-et-nay-ya) adventure. We went to Catania and got on an old train that travels around the mountain stopping at almost every town along the way. The train actually has the old time whistle and bumps along the track in such an informal way that at one point the engineer stopped to let the conductor jump out and pick oranges off nearby trees to give to people on the train. Time meant nothing that day and we enjoyed seeing Mount Etna from every angle. I can’t say the countryside was beautiful. The view we had most of the time was of giant walls of lava or a field that seemed to grow lava rocks. Bob said we could make a fortune on lava table tops if we could figure out a way to move them all and knew how to polish them.

We stopped in the small town of Randazzo, the highest town and the town closest to the mouth of the volcano. This is the same place that is pictured in Ken and Lynette’s blog—the church made of lava. The weather didn’t seem to know whether to be nice or misty that day so we went into several shops and enjoyed the sights in line with the weather. Once, when it got too misty to walk we ducked into a pastacceria to have a mid-morning snack. The advertisement on the wall said they served 32 different chocolate drinks. Could I resist? Of course not! The one I got tasted just like the chocolate pudding I mentioned before with probably a touch of cherry flavoring in it. I definitely had my chocolate fix for the day.

Continuing around the mountain we ended at Giarro, just north of Catania, where we transferred to a super modern train to get us back to the train station in Catania. I’ve never been on a train so nice and smooth-riding----and quiet. It runs on electricity and you don’t hear any engine noise at all. If we had trains like this in the States we might have less gasoline problems, everyone would be riding the train.