Saturday, June 11

The swim in the early morning was amazing, though a bit chilly. It was still about 25 km's to Catania, which I covered relatively quickly.

Etna was now really close, below is a picture of the fuming, smoking mountain as seen through the net of my tent.

The first highlight was a huge fish market, selling freshly caught tuna, swordfish, clams and shells and and and...really impressive. Interesting to note was the lack of smell, as the marketplace was continuously splashed by water.

On the main square, flanked by baroque buildings, the main attraction was a small dog playing with a balloon, keeping it in the air by jumping at it.

I had been warned about Catania as being notoriously unsafe and after seeing so many towns, I just rode through it, stopping to take a picture or two. After visiting one more market, I found myself heading out of town, steep uphill, in heavy traffic, towards Mount Etna. Google was not very helpful, at one point I was stuck in the middle of a roundabout, facing the wrong way. I managed to get out of there alive, the next challenge was navigating out of the huge traffic jam.Now it was a narrow road up to Nicolosi. It was yet again an exhausting climb, Google wanted to “help” again, by offering on a shorter, by much steeper road, but I learnt from the mistakes of the past an did not follow this suggestion. I was riding through a pretty residential area, with expensive family homes. Exhausted, I reached Nicolosi and in a supermarket, bought lots of water and food for the upcoming section. This was the last town before the barren slopes of Etna.I had no idea to what would follow, a road sign soon declared that 17 kilometers of an uphill ride awaited me, with about 1,200 meters of elevation gain. Not all too bad and a lot less than expected.Well, it was harder than I thought, it took me close to three hours or so to reach the top - the previous patch of the road, up to Nicolosi, had drained a lot of energy out of my system. Fortunately, it was not hot at all, that made the going somewhat easier. The asphalt led directly through lava fields, with rewards was an amazing view of Catania, of the sea and the Sicilian countryside, not to mention the cloud of fumes being puffed out of Etna continuously.

Finally at the top, at 1,910 meters above the sea level, I first played with the idea of wild-camping, I gave that up, I was longing for a bath - plus it was rather cool. At a hotel at the top, called Rifugio Sapienza, I bargained down the price of the last room from Eur 120 to just €50. It was surprisingly spacious, I fell into bed after a warm shower.