In Catania, there's no escaping Etna.

So we thought an appropriate bit of volcano-worship would be to do a trip all the way round the mountain.

Which you can do, relatively easily, with the help of Ferrovia Circumetnea, the round-Etna railway company.

In fairness, this 110-km narrow-gauge railway line, constructed between 1895 and 1898, never entirely circled the mountain. It made a kind of ear shape between Catania at the bottom and Riposto at the top, and you would fill in the gap along the coast with the normal railway.

These days, it's a bit more fragmented. First, the powers-that-be converted the initial bit of the route into a metro line. So the first thing you have to do to go round the mountain is catch the metro to Nesima.

And currently, they're busy extending the metro, meaning that a lot of what used to be the railway line is being dug up to become a different kind of railway. So, the second thing you have to do is catch the substitute bus to Paterno.


As you trundle away from Nesima, you're already seeing evidence of the volcano's work: Expanses of lava; and big chunks of lava, just sitting there between the blocks of flats...

Even on this part of the journey, there are good views of what by any standard is an impressive mountain:


Paterno is where you really get going. Here you swap onto an adorably retro diesel rail-car, which growls along for an hour and a half, twisting and turning, until you get to Randazzo.







It's a fantastically scenic trip. The line runs along quite high up on the flank of the mountain, so not only do you get epic views of Etna, always trailing that fantastic plume across the sky, but you also get fabulous views down into the valley below:










We had about 90 minutes in Randazzo (the nearest town to the summit of Etna) before we were due to start the next part of the trip.

Needless to say, there are views of the mountain...



And although we seemed to be constantly dodging traffic in the narrow little streets, it's certainly a picturesque place:





Back at the station, we were terribly disappointed to find that the rest of the route is currently being covered by a subsitute bus...

Aaaagh... The eternally dismaying substitute bus... There was nothing about this on the website (the oft-repeated cry of the modern traveller).

But what do you do? It's the bus or nothing.

And it is a scenic ride, as you descend thousands of metres to the seaside. I'd only just commented that I'd heard so much about wine from the slopes of Etna, and yet had seen no vineyards, when -- as if on cue -- they started to appear. Vineyard after vineyard. Also some nice little villas, looking perhaps as though they needed a bit of work, but still quite grand. And oranges... Enough, you'd think, to feed the entire world with oranges.

One of the snags of buses is that they get caught in traffic jams. On the train, you don't find yourself following along behind the bin cart, or caught up in some almighty shemozzle occasioned by a badly parked car.

And buses are harder to take photos from. On the one hand, you're more immobile yourself, and on the other, the motion of the vehicle is different. We did manage to snap these (don't ask me where they are):




If you want to go straight back to Catania, your best bet is to get off the bus at Giarre, and catch the Trenitalia train from there. We wanted, however, to have a quick look at Riposto, the town at the end of the line.


We arrived in Riposto at the low point of the day, when everyone's had lunch, and shut up shop until the evening. But it was a fine venue for a bit of a walk...







Finally, the Trenitalia train back to Catania, bringing the day's total to three trains and two buses.

And then all that remained was to drink to the mountain with half a bottle of white from its very slopes. How could you not?