Camping In Sicily

Go ahead, try it. Google "camping in Sicily". You will come up with a list of KOA type campsites with camper parking, electrical plug-ins, showers, bathrooms, and very often a restaurant. That is camping. Now, where I come from, that's not really camping. Camping involves a tent, a campfire, a camp stove, dirt, and bugs. Camping in luxury involves bringing an air mattress and lighter fluid (which are both perfectly acceptable to me). So we wanted to go camping on Mt Etna. It's a mountain, it has forests....perfect for camping. Try googling "camp on mt etna". You pretty much find one campsite that is as described above.

There is a picnic area in a grove of trees about 3/4 the way up the North side of Mt Etna towards Piano Provenzana. You go up to Linguaglossa, take a left, and head up the mountain. It has a few rickety picnic tables and some stone barbecues. It is on park land and thus controlled by the park service (Italian Forest Rangers). Now there is no information available anywhere on whether or not you can camp on Etna, since who would ever consider such an idea! So I had a friend call the Chief of Police in Linguaglossa to make sure no one was going to roust us at 1 am saying we couldn't sleep there (that is assuming an Italian officer would be actively patrolling at 1 am). I know, it's unlikely, but I err on the side of caution. The chief, unable to comprehend why anyone would participate in such a heathen activity mentioned all of the hotels we could stay at. When we finally convinced him we wanted to sleep in a tent, exasperated, he said there are too many flies, we are crazy, but no one is going to bother us. In fact, he even agreed to tell any of his people passing by to look in on us, make sure we were OK. So we were good to go.

We arrived that afternoon and there is a Belgian family and an Italian family picnicking. I lay out a tarp and begin pitching the tents. The Italians watched in awe, confident we were crazy. But, undaunted, I continued. I started the charcoal briquettes and began cooking the hobo (tin foil) dinners. Mmmmmm. The Italians left, shaking their heads. Then the Belgians took off. We had a great time. We roasted marshmallows for s'mores and made up stories around the campfire. After we put the kids to bed, the Belgian family came back. Apparently they were travelling through Italy and camping wherever they found themselves at night. A great idea! See, it's not just Americans that are crazy campers. However, we did laugh when they filled their air mattress using the exhaust of their car. Nothing like sleeping on a bed of carbon monoxide! Puts you right to sleep, and if you actually wake up in the morning, then all's well.

I will admit that in the morning there were A LOT of flies. They seemed to love pancake batter. But what's roughing it without a few bugs right?

If you ever decide you want to camp on a volcano in Sicily, just remember, the locals won't be of any help. Camping? Who would do that when there are perfectly good hotels nearby? Uncivilized I tell you. Uncivilized.