What It’s Like to Live in the Shadow of an Active Volcano in Italy

The first time I get on the phone with Sicilian volcano tour guide Vincenzo Modica, the call lasts no more than three seconds. “Sorry, right now, there was just an explosion,” he says. And like a ringlet of smoke out of a volcano’s summit, he’s gone.

An hour and a half later, when I get him back, he explains. Modica lives in the town of Milo, a village on the slopes of Mount Etna, the volcano that’s been erupting in Catania since mid-July, spewing hot gritty ash and lava alongside Italy’s smaller Stromboli volcano. One of the most active volcanoes in the world, in an almost constant state of activity in the last decade, Etna has had at least six significant eruptions since 2000, and many, many smaller hiccups. In 2021, thanks to lava buildup, she grew by around 100 feet in height over a six-month period. And the ash from her eruption on July 22nd has reached as far as Greece. This tantrum is old hat, but still incredibly exciting.

Modica both monitors the volcano from his home, and maintains a livestream of the action. If something unusual happens, he takes note, and that’s what happened this morning. “Etna has four main summit craters, and one of these craters today was a little bit noisy,” he tells me. “But then another one, which hasn’t erupted for probably a couple of years, suddenly produced an explosion.”

Right when I called, a large cloud of ash spewed out from the sleepy crater. “It’s a rare situation—we weren’t expecting this,” Modica tells me.

Seven years ago, Modica, who was born and raised in Palermo, about two and a half hours away, moved to Milo to be able to witness the whims of Etna firsthand. With 20 years guiding trekkers on Etna, it just made sense for the commute. “I rented one of the first houses in front of the crater,” he says. “Now, in this way, I cannot miss the eruption.” Plus, the move brings spectacular firsthand views, which he records for his livestream.

Ten different municipalities abut Mount Etna, with several of the villages heavily dependent upon volcano tourism. Italy was the first to make volcanological guide a rigorously-tested profession; now there are a total of about 130 certified guides in the country (Modica, of course, being one of them). Naturally, there are upticks in tourism after Etna makes international news. “People watch this eruption on TV, and then they want to come visit the volcano,” Modica explains. And there’s definitely plenty of visual stimulation. “In 2021, the volcano started to produce a lot of eruptions. For now, my eyes are full.”

Though there have been no life-threatening eruptions while he’s lived there, there are inconveniences living so close. Like sometimes when Etna hiccups, Milo gets completely covered in ash. “Every time we have to clean, especially the roof of our house,” he tells me. “All the ash settles on top of the roof. Then, when it’s raining, we have a problem, because the water cannot flow down.”

Sometimes the ash is interspersed with heavier, more threatening rocks. “I remember in 2021 we had like one eruption every 12 to 24 hours, and I was sleeping with a helmet by the side of my bed,” he tells me. “And every time when it erupted, I’d wake up and quickly cover my car, because sometimes we receive pretty big stones that could damage it.”

When there’s an eruption, the Catania airport closes, as ash in the air clouds flight visibility and covers runways. And on the roads of Catania, chaos ensues. “The problem is that Catania is a big city with nearly 600,000 people,” explains Modica. “When the ash falls on the road, all the cars, trucks and big buses will drive on top of this ash. And this ash will became very, very teeny, and will became a powder. This powder can be a problem for the filters of cars and for the lungs of the people.”

A study done after the 2001-2002 eruption concluded that though the ash isn’t toxic, in Catania there was a significant increase in ER visits for acute respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, and ocular disturbances during the ash exposure time period.

So with all these inconveniences, why would one put themselves so close to a volcano? And what do they get out of it?

If somehow you missed it, the first thing pointed out to you when you leave the Catania airport is the skyscraping Mount Etna. Technically a stratovolcano—covering 650 miles and peaking at 10,900 feet—she is steep, conical, and perfect, a childhood drawing come to life. I first glimpsed her about a month ago, when driving to my hotel in the neighboring city of Taormina. Smoke wisped out of her mouth, like a lazy exhalation from a cigarette.

Thanks to its close proximity just north of two tectonic plates, Italy is the only country on mainland Europe with active volcanoes. Vesuvius is the most notorious among them, engulfing and preserving for eternity Pompeii and Herculaneum in 79 AD in one of the most deadly volcanic eruptions to date. Modica tells me that Etna is always active, churning beneath the surface, and that constant exhaust is a byproduct. “We call it volcanic plume,” he explains. “And most of the smoke that you see is composed of vapor.” Still, for someone not used to the sight, it’s unsettling.

Not knowing when I’d see the volcano again, I stole glimpses on the hour-long drive from the airport to my hotel, which was situated high above the sea, up a windy road. I took fleeting roadside videos, interrupted by passing foliage. But when I got to my hotel, the Four Seasons Taormina at San Domenico Palace, I was pleasantly surprised. Etna, it turns out, is one of the great selling points of this monastery-turned-luxury destination (even more so now after it was the setting for the second season of White Lotus). There were unobstructed views of volcanic plume wherever you turned: from the Michelin-starred Principe Cerami—whose chef Massimo Mantarro hails from Piedimonte Etneo, a commune at the base of the volcano—to prime views from the infinity pool, the lawn, and from my very balcony, where I greeted Etna every morning with a cup of coffee.

For some, Etna is an afterthought. But if you want, it can be the focus of your Sicilian experience. There is an Etna Suite at the San Domenico Palace that frames her in the windows. There are Etna-themed cocktails at the courtyard Bar & Chiostro. And the hotel offers an Etna stargazing safari as well as an Etna helicopter tour.

For some, living near a volcano may sound like a curse—especially when eruptions like in Kīlauea in Hawai’i and Fagradalsfjall in Iceland cause mass destruction and disrupt local economies. But here, the volcano is a gift, whose fire fuels the tourism industry.

Etna was designated an UNESCO World Heritage site in 2013, but she has been a draw as long as she’s existed. F. Scott Fitzgerald mentioned the mountain in a letter to his agent and friend Elizabeth Otis while staying at the San Domenico. “We are on the slope of Etna in the most luxurious hotel, a thousand feet above the sea,” he wrote. “We admire Mount Etna which is overhung by as black a cloud as I think you have ever seen. I think the gods are having a meeting there.”

Etna’s byproduct is useful: Cooled lava is used as a building material and can be seen in the walls of many older houses. Eruptions over centuries have transformed the landscape of the Parco dell’Etna—Etna Natural Reserve—into a lunar-like, frequently changing attraction. And as the most active volcano in Europe, she is also one of the most monitored. Volcanologists have set up shop to study her capacity for geothermal energy (as some other volcanoes are used for), among other research topics.

Records of eruptions date back to 1500 BC; the volcano’s name comes from the Greek Aitne, from aithō, meaning: “I burn.” And there are, of course, many myths about Etna. One of the most famous is of Hephaestus, god of fire and metallurgy and the Greek gods’ blacksmith, who used the volcano as his workshop. When he worked, his sparks were Etna erupting. The Cyclops also used her to forge arrows for Zeus. A third legend says the serpentine giant Typhon lay under the mountain, and when he turned, the earth trembled.

Some today have anthropomorphized Etna. “I’m not talking about me, but we consider Mount Etna a big mama,” explains Modica. “She gives us soil, and many other things. But like every mama, she gets angry.”

That volcanic soil Modica speaks of is enriched by ash and lava and filled with potassium. It’s especially fertile not only for nuts, citrus fruits, apples, pears, cherries and olives (for a uniquely robust olive oil), but grapes for Sicilian wine.

Sicilian wine has a long and storied history. Prior to 1950, it was used to fortify wines from France and northern Italy. But in the past few decades they’ve been innovated, and come into their own. The family-owned Pietradolce winery has been in operation since 2005. “We mainly grow the Etna-specific Nerello Mascalese (red) and Carricante (white), which are the two flagships of Mount Etna,” says Michele Faro, the winery’s owner. In their Prephilloxera vineyards it’s also possible to find other rare grapes like Nerello Cappuccio, a white grape found in Sicily and Calabria, Minnella Nera, an obscure, Sicilian light-skinned red grape, or Minnella Bianca, a white grape found exclusively on the slopes of Etna. “This is a combination among the richness of the sandy texture, the very good drainage of it and the rocky substrate rich of humidity and water,” Faro continues.

For those in the many wineries surrounding Etna, living in the shadow of the volcano is a symbiotic relationship. “Human beings that live close to a volcano develop a connection with it. We respect and love Mount Etna, which is traditionally the first thing we look at when we awaken,” says Faro. “It sounds strange, but we’re used to feeling Etna. We think there’s a particular connection between a volcano and human beings.”

They find that visitors are particularly interested in the relationship between volcanic soil and viticulture, and here is a good place to learn about it. The soil and the volcano are found throughout the winery. The earth is used in the rooftop garden where olive trees, strawberries downy oak, and other Etnean and Mediterranean plants are cultivated. Lava rocks are employed for thermal isolation in the cellar, saving energy as part of their sustainability approach. And some wine labels feature a female form of Etna. “Traditionally, for local people, Etna is a female divinity, who better than her can represent the terroir on the label,” says Faro.

As for whether the eruptions bother him, Faro tells me, “We were born close to an activating volcano, this is the risk we are used to, and perhaps because of this, we consider it less.”

Warnings of an Etna eruption can come in the form of just some smoke for a few days, earthquakes, or sometimes nothing at all. But though eruptions are more frequent these days, they’re rarely severe enough to do damage. That’s because they’re usually high up from the summit. Modica explains that disruptive eruptions are usually from the side, at a lower altitude. “In this case, we call it the side eruption,” he explains. “And in this case, we can have problems with the villages and sometimes have to evacuate.”

An eruption in March to July of 1669 resulted in 15,000 deaths when over 990 million cubic yards of lava was thrown out. The eruption took place along a fissure that opened above the town of Nicolosi. The lava flow enveloped the western part of the town of Catania and destroyed a dozen villages on the lower slope. Workers dug a trench above the village in an effort to divert the lava stream away.

The last seriously destructive activity occurred in 2001, with multiple eruptions accompanied by earthquakes and new vents spewing lava and steam. Nicolosi was again in the line of (literal) fire. A state of emergency was declared, and workers once more built walls of mud and asphalt to divert the lava. But in our modern times, they also had helicopters, which flew through the ash spraying water over the rivers of lava. And so, Nicolosi was never evacuated; the lava stopped before it got to the village. Acres of chestnut groves and pine trees bore the brunt of it, as well as a few tourist spaces like ski hotels.

Either way, the residents weren’t phased. “For us, Etna is everything. It represents the fire that for Sicilians is our character,” Nicolosi’s then-Mayor Salvatore Moschetto told the Los Angeles Times. “It gives us the possibility to live, to have a tourism industry. It’s a beautiful volcano.”

Modica is currently biding his time for when he can take visitors up to the summit again. “It’s forbidden at the moment to go to the summit because the volcano is warming up, so we don’t know if it will produce another eruption or not,” he tells me. There was significant lava and ash activity just a few days ago, on August 4th.

But there are still options. Visitors can currently hike up to 9,000 feet by themselves (a cable car will take you to the start of the trail at about 8,200 feet for 50 euros). Hiking is allowed up to 10,826 feet with a volcanological guide such as Modica to navigate unwieldy paths. (Whenever there’s an eruption, trails are destroyed to reach the summit and need to be rebuilt.)

You can always just watch from afar, too. Before he signs off, Modica tells me, “Now it’s daylight, but in a couple of hours when the sunset comes, we start to see the red of the explosion. I will take my glass of wine, my piece of cheese, my piece of salami and will enjoy a couple of explosions before going to bed.”

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