14 January 2008

greek theaters and volcanos

Finally some visuals!!! Today I hiked around the Greek ruins of Siracusa and saw some amazing stuff. Besides the above theater, there was a massive quarry where they extracted their stones and in turn created some huge grottoes and catacombs where they held prisoners. One of them was so big it was surreal to think that they could've done that in the 5th century BC let alone today.

This is from the inside of the Orecchio di Dionigi (Dionysus's ear) where it went back around a corner into complete darkness.

Here's a link to a brief film of Stromboli erupting. It erupts every 20 to 30 minutes, sometimes quite large while other times the lava just trickles out over the edge of the crater. The big eruptions were preceded by a huge grumble from inside the mountain and then the lava shot into the air. This film really doesn't do it justice... you just gotta go there to experience it yourself.

I'm off to Noto tomorrow and then on to Agrigento before heading back up north to Palermo. More photos to come... eventually. Ciao a tutti!