Post 12: Up the Etna, well Almost!

    We left Enna early and rode the Autopista East almost all the way to Catania, before turning North towards Paterno and the Etna Western slopes skirting road:

      We stopped in Paterno to shop or groceries, and also to check out the attractive cemetery:

   The drive up to Randazzo actually wasn't particularly attractive, except for the occasional views of the imposing volcano. The countryside is scruffy, and the houses are mostly recent and unattractive. AND for a reason I cannot fathom, locals seem to like to dump their trash and garbage by the side of the road, everything from old toilets to mattresses, and from filled plastic garbage bags to cases of rotten oranges:

    The views of the volcano behind fields of cactuses grown for prickly pears are great if you frame above the rail and the piles of garbage:

   We made it to Randazzo by lunch time, parked right in front of the nice old church built of black lava and white stone, and had lunch right there on an old stone bench (mortadella, prosciutto crude, and gorgonzola(first time we find it in Sicily, where most of the cheeses seems to be big, white, and tasteless), with a bottle of white and one of red of course(we kept some of everything for dinner, having decided that picnic food and 1 Euro a slice pizza was better than the very uneven 50 to 60 Euros restaurant menus) :

   Rachel was disappointed not to find in the shops trinkets made of black lava stone, similar to those seen at the Villa del Casale souvenir booths. It was too far to drive up to the Refugio on the slopes themselves, so we turned back. 

    Huge orchard of peach trees were in full bloom:

     We were back in Enna early enough to drive to the Castello dei Normandi, big, but mostly grey rock ruins, and also stopped by the Cathedral hoping to see a Semana Santa display, but there was none. On the other hand, I noticed the beautiful small baroque organ I had missed on our previous visit: