Sunset on Etna

The sunset as seen from our room at the Hotel Corsaro, some 2000 meters up the southern flank of Europe's tallest active volcano. I kinda liked this shot, despite obvious shortcomings, since the droplets and the window shutters made it much more interesting than the "clean" shots. Sunset photos are often boring if there is only a sunset and nothing else visible in it. And there isn't much else to see up here, apart from jagged black volcanic rock and ash all around.

Drove here all the way from Agrigento today, which doesn't seem like much in terms of kilometers, but any distance in our tiny, underpowered Fiat Panda with its stiff suspension is a challenge. Racing past numerous cadavers on the autostrada, feeling the thump-thump of numerous (badly made) expansion joints on numerous bridges, and evading many near-accidents while telling mom that I'm in fact not speeding at all. I'm just driving like the locals seem to drive. And I seem to be getting the hang of it. If someone coming from a side street is creeping fowards onto the road you're on, by all means, don't slow down! That just shows that you must be a spineless pussy, with the other driver promptly cutting you off as a result. Instead, just keep on going at unaltered speed. Trust me, that does the trick. Even if I'm in a Panda, they won't cut me off. Honking your horn also helps (unless you're dealing with a pack of stray dogs, they don't seem to care (hence the many cadavers)).

Tomorrow, we'll do the big tour that involves riding up in the cable car, being driven almost all the way to the main crater in 4wd buses, and then hiking down again, while being shown the most interesting sights that the volcano has to offer. If the weather doesn't play up of course. There was quite a thunderstorm while I was driving here, but the forecast for tomorrow looks promising. Fingers crossed!