Woo hoo we've been up the volcano! The walk up isn't so bad; the steepest section is around the second corner where the soft, black sandy-gravel path looks daunting. At the next corner it became less steep as black gravel gives way to mud-stone from which the track had been hacked. Which wouldn't have been too hard a job to hack as the mud crumbled when touched. 45 minutes from setting off and we were at the moonscape level, gray and rocky before another short up to the crater's edge.

Wow what a sight! Muticoloured layers of yellow, red and ochre rock, big boulders that can only have come from being thrown out of the crater at some point and billowing plumes of smoke coming from bright yellow vents.

The smoke was blocking off access to the path to the left, unless we wanted to breath in toxic, sulphurous fumes. I did breath some in unexpectedly as the wind changed direction and it's not nice, it left a nasty taste at the back of my mouth. Down in the crater people must have scrambled down to write messages with stones and build a cairn.

Walking round the crater edge the path is about 3m wide but on either side it's pretty much a long slope to almost certain death. At the highest point was another cairn. From there was a zigzag path down but it went through the sulphur clouds.

On the way back down Colin tried a bit of scree skiing but the layer of scree on the path was a bit too thin to ski on so he had to stick to walking.


Vulcano

The volcanic activity in this area is caused by the north moving African plate pushing into the Eurasian plate. Vulcano was named after the Roman god Vulcan and the legends tell of it being the chimney of his workshop where he would make weapons for Mars to wage war. The last major eruption was in 1890 so we were feeling pretty confident of our safety.

As well as the sulphur vents on the crater, there are fumeroles popping up around the seashore. When we landed in the dinghy on the black sand beach bubbles were streaming up to the surface from small holes. Then there is the hot mud pool next to the giant red and yellow rock formation that looks like it wouldn't be out of place on Mars. €2 gives you the pleasure of slapping on warm, sloppy mud in the hope that it improves the condition of your skin. You have to trawl around the pale brown pool a bit feeling around with your toes for the sloppy stuff and trying to avoid the really hot patches. Having found some, scoop it up, slap it on everywhere and look like a bit of a loon. But everyone was doing it and it was great fun, despite the smell and I'm sure my skin was softer afterwards! From the mud pool are some steps into the sea where there are some more vigourous fumeroles. Swimming over them was a bit like being in a jacuzzi but I got a scalding when my foot got to close to the vents opening. Ouch.


Scenes around Vulcano

After all that activity it was time for some sitting down so another day we caught a bus to the other side of the island. After passing through the rural centre a white knuckle switch back road lead down the flank of a dormant volcano to the tiny harbour of Gelso which consisted of a few houses, a church and a lighthouse along with a restaurant where we got tiny cups of very strong black coffee. After seeing all these was we still had 30 minutes before the bus so whiled away the time sat on a bench admiring the views.

Next stop Stromboli and lava!