Once in the square where the Val Calanna begins, besides a fountain and a drinking trough for grazing animals, there is a votive shrine dedicated to Our Lady of Providence, erected in 1992 by the inhabitants of Zafferana. They came to this place in procession, to ask that their town be saved from th...

Mount Calanna is a small portion of a much larger volcanic system that developed between 130 and 110,000 years ago. It is currently believed that this is the first central volcanic structure after the phase of the Timpe, with displacement of the eruptive mouths inland, specifically towards the curre...

The Valle del Bove is a large valley that covers the entire eastern flank of Mount Etna. Its name comes from the shape of its edges, which resemble an ox hoof (bove means ox in Italian). Formed between 10,000 and 5,000 years ago, in the last 50 years the completely uninhabited Valle del Bove has be...

According to legend, Acireale is named after the young shepherd Acis, son of the god Pan, protector of mountains and woods. Acis was hopelessly in love with the beautiful Galatea, one of the fifty Nereids, the nymphs of the sea. But Galatea was also loved by Polyphemus, the cyclops who lived in th...

Publius Ovidius Naso (Ovid) was born in Sulmo in 43 BC. From a young age he began studying rhetoric after moving to Rome during the Augustan age, then devoted himself to poetry alongside the greatest writers of his time, in the circle of Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus. Here he composed works that...

Wild fennel or timpa fennel is an endemic Mediterranean plant with the scientific name Foeniculum vulgare. It is an edible plant used in local and Sicilian cuisine in general. Its leaves can be found in pasta with sardines and pasta with fava beans, while the less tender parts are used in pickled pr...

Verismo (meaning realism in Italian) was a literary movement established approximately between 1875 and 1895 by Giovanni Verga and Luigi Capuana, in collaboration with other writers. Verismo came at a cultural substratum when there was absolute faith in science, the experimental method and the infa...

The fault is a fracture within a volume of rock in the Earth’s crust, where the two blocks that are separated show evidence of relative movement. The block above the fault surface is called the hanging wall, while the block below is called the footwall. If the hanging wall moves down the fault su...

Pillow lava is a typical product of underwater volcanic activity, with the formation of characteristic pillow-shaped structures. When lava escapes below sea level, the outer portion cools quickly, while inside it is still completely melted and able to flow. The pressure from the inside slowly inc...

Sometimes, the pillow lavas can break due to excess internal pressure that is higher than the pressure of the surrounding water: in this case the inside of the “pillow” comes into contact with water so quickly that it vaporises instantly, creating a small explosion that causes the lava to break ...