I break camp at 7 and wind my way though the outskirts of Catania by 7.30. My goal is to take a quick look at the city centre, then move along to a shopping center outside where I can get both groceries and camping gas.
The city is typical of how I’ve come to know italian cities: beautiful old churches and palaces amidst run-down housing and abandones factories. The infrastructure is crumbling, from playgrounds to parks to the streets. And garbage everywhere, excwpt the center. It has a certain beauty, but not a place I’d want to live.
From the center I take a small odyssey to the commercial area near Misterbianco. Twists and turns through the one-way streets bring me closer through the hilly suburbs of Catania. When I ask a Carabiniere, if a closed road is passable, he looks at my bike and says yes, the road is not good, but it’s okay. Well, the road is okay, but almost completely covered in broken glass… and the end of the road has a big locked gat that I need to climb over. Well, cycle travel is always a bit of an adventure.
From Misterbianco I start my way up mount Etna, in scorching heat, and I’m glad that I bought plenty of water. My goal is a refuge hut along the Pista Altomontana forest road that circles two thirds if Etna at around 1900 m elevation. But one wrong turn and I find myself on a tiny, overgrown trail. Nice enough, but too steep to ride towards the end. I have a good loong lunch break at a national park entrance.
The forest path is pretty good and not too sandy and I make decent progress. However, only 1km before the hut, a rockfall of loose and rough volcanic basalt stops me. It’s only about 500 metres wide, but with my bike and bags I would have needed to traverse it 3 times. Not an enticing prospect. So I cook dinner in the sunset with a great view onto misty Sardinia and decide that I don’t want to walk. I’ve done that often enough in the past and it was seldomly worth it. After dinner, I turn around downhill to find a spot to sleep for the night.
I’ve ridden only 75 kilometer, but with 2200 m elevation. Not bad for the first day.