Etna, the highest active volcano in Europe, and the fascinating interior of its Grotta Cassone

Mount Etna is one of Europe's most famous mountains and the highest in southern Italy. It is also the largest active volcano in Europe.

Flying over and skiing on Mount Etna in the middle of a volcanic eruption
The last day of Pompeii: this is how the volcanic eruption that buried the Roman city was

Located in the east of the island of Sicily and with a height of 3,357 meters, this volcano was responsible for the most destructive volcanic eruption in the history of Europe, which began on March 8, 1669, when the enormous mountain began to rumble. Etna expelled 830 million cubic meters of lava, according to National Geographic. The lava flow flooded the city of Catania, killing more than 20,000 people, after destroying the walls erected to stop its advance.

Mount Etna remains very active. In March, we saw spectacular aerial images of its February 6 eruption. A few months later, on June 2, a new pyroclastic flow erupted that collapsed the northern flank of its Southeast Crater, with the volcanic plume reaching a height of 6.5 kilometers.

Yesterday, the always interesting channel Aventuras Entresierras (which I recommend you subscribe to) published a video of an ascent to Mount Etna by cable car and bus (surely one of the most expensive cable cars in Europe, as it is an infrastructure permanently under threat), and also visiting the Grotta Cassone, a spectacular cave formed by the lava flow in the 1792 eruption (the video is in Spanish, you can activate automatic English subtitles in the bottom bar of the player):

You can see some screenshots from this video here, as a preview. We begin with an impressive image of this enormous volcano:

This is the Mount Etna cable car. It's not the first. One was built at the end of the 19th century, but it was destroyed by the 1971 eruption. The current cable car starts from Rifugio Sapienza (at an altitude of 1,923 meters) and reaches an altitude of 2,500 meters.

One of the Mount Etna buses (actually 4x4 Mercedes Unimog trucks with a passenger compartment in the back) that travel from the end of the cable car to an altitude of almost 3,000 meters. You can find more information about this service on the website funiviaetna.com.

One of the most interesting parts of the video is the Grotta Cassone, whose entrance we can see below. It's amazing to see the perfect shapes nature is capable of creating.