2005

31/12 Snow and sun. Weather is fantastic today. A good way to close year 2005! Happy New Year to all friends all around world!

24/12 Merry Christmas to mr Ahti Heikkilä who sent us a candle from Finland (to light up our dinner, this evening) and to all friends we have all around world. Merry Christmas to you all!

09/12 It snows every day and snow melts during ‘warm’ hours. In few days everything could be white.

26/11 First training exercises of driving on snow. Not enough for skiing but enough for me to finally test what my new car can do. Or can’t. Nothing more enjoying that driving an all wheel drive Seat Leon disabling ESP, believe me! Greeting to all friends in Seat Leon Italian Club

22/11 Nicolas Masselot, a guide of Chamina groups sent us two extraordinary ‘Diaporama’ of Etna. He demonstrates once more to be a good photographer and a lover of Etna in all its aspects, from lava to snow, to fauna, to landscapes and so on. To see Diaporamas you’ll need Quick Time. Download them with a right-click on link or launch them with a simple left click, wait download then look picture after picture. You can use normal video commands like ‘pause’ if you wish to enjoy a particular picture. I hope you’ll appreciate like me some of the rarest pictures which really give you sensation ‘to be there’ around top craters and with a sense of dizziness. Click on Diaporama 1 and Diaporama 2 to launch them (around 6MB each one). A new browser window could open but you’ll see it blank until photos are completely downloaded. Wait (long!) to see them. My thanks to Nicolas Masselot for authorization to publish pictures on our website once more!

14/11 classic good weather day with all Sicily coverer. We seem on an island on a sea of clouds and I am sorry I don’t have a camera to show you.

31/10 scientists say that current sismic activity is related not to Etna activity but with normal tectonic movements. Three small earthquakes have been heard by population. Nothing to worry about, they say and it seems anyway there are no possibilities of a new eruption. With instrumental ones we had a total of twenty earthquakes in latest days.

28/10 little earthquake at 13:59 (just one minute ago). You are first ones to know it 😉

27/10 a newer version of new future Hotel Corsaro website is available at http://www.netskin.net/corsaro/. It is yet under construction but it’s finally working!

13/08 A new special webcam is active on Etna. You can also drive it but it is used for astronomic observations not related to volcano. If you wish to try website is www.skylive.it. Thanks to MC20VT of Seat Leon Italian Club for this new!

08/08 Tanguy de Saint Cyr did it! A new fantastic website is almost ready and contains pictures from enormous “Aventure et Volcans” archive. Visit  World’s Volcanoes Pictures to get some magnificent pictures. Website in in expansion and covers an impressive number of volcanoes visited by Aventure et Volcans trekking travel agency.

13/07 We had today Tom Pfeiffer (the original one!) here with one of first groups of his new travel agency “Volcano Discovery”. I am glad of this new enterprise expecially because people who will travel with him will travel with expert volcanologists.

15/06 Our friends of LAVE (“L’Association Volcanologique Européene Dèlègation belge”) have been here in May and they took some photos of all their expedition to Eolian Islands and Etna with two more steps to Taormina and Castelmola. To look at their pictures click here.

03/05 Boris Behncke contacted us to advice a new I.N.G.V. camera is active and two Etna Trekking Webcams are back on line. We are happy to read everything is going fine in his life and he will have a new little geologist in family, soon.

30/04 Monsieur Robin Campion (geologist and Etna lover) announces us existence of another Etna Webcam. This new camera has been placed in Santa Venerina and looks Valle del Bove. Etna 2000 website seems very interesting. I particularly love 3D images of our volcano which show how far is Etna from a classic volcanic cone (click here). UPDATE: WEBCAM LINK CORRECTED in webcams page: http://www.etna2000.com/webcam_Etna2000.htm. We ask sorry to Etna 2000 staff for bad link.

28/04 About 100.000 visits since December, 14th 1999; and two eruptions. It is strange to consider how many things happened in this five years, sometimes with lava so near we thought to loose our hotel again, like in 1983. It is also strange to consider than during two eruptions we continued to improve hotel spending about 1.000.000 euro with lava often less than 500 meters far. New website is under works and I hope soon I can begin to write how really is to work on an active volcano and create a new ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ section answering everything people generally ask us. For example: “Don’t you fear to work on Etna?”: “no, Etna is dangerous for buildings, not people except around top craters and just if people don’t know what they are doing”. With more space I could also explain ‘why’. I am anxious to get new spaces for all services we wish to add to our website.

16/04 Linguaglossa’s touristic Station (Etna Nord – Piano Provenzana) finally will be rebuilt after 2001 eruption. Project for touristic station has been finally completed and I hope it will be operative soon.

14/04 Added a new link to Siciltrek: they organize excursions to main craters of Etna and every other active volcano in Italy driven by Andrea Ercolani.

07/04 Winter again! We had about 15 centimeters of snow in past days and it seems this week-end will be cold, too. I am sorry I didn’t have possibility to publish other pictures, yet. Soon I would like to show 1983 eruption photos but I have to scan very big pictures with a little A4 scanner.

21/03 Added another Hotel’s picture. It shows Restaurant in 70’s, when a first round hall has been added to older building. Added a new section: “Distances from Hotel”. Distances given by ViaMichelin service. Thanks to this I discovered we are perfectly in center of eastern Sicily most important places (about 100Km from Siracusa, from Piazza Armerina and from Messina, about 50 Km from Taormina and Catania Airport.

19/03 Happy Birthday to Alessandro who is now 34 years old!
I am happy I received a letter and some pictures by our Finnish friend Ahti Heikkilä. I am glad to discover his passion for painting and I hope he will come soon on Etna to find inspiration from lava, snow, sea and men on our magic volcano. I publish one of his works, the “Shipwreck”, 100 X 75 cm. I had to adjust colours increasing contrast due (maybe too much?).
While closing news I received a mail with thanks by monsieur Jean-Jacques Faugère of Terra Vulcania. In past days I offered a link to their Webcams pages but now I discover there is much more to  see from their Home Page about many other world volcanoes. Click here to rapidly reach Terra Vulcania.

18/03 Another picture added. It shows a young Antonino Corsaro in Corsaro Restaurant’s Bar during ’60s.
Julien Lachèvre of “Terre et Volcans” says about us: “Refuge agréable, accueil chaleureux” in little website about her experience of volcanoes. We are glad to link “La Terre en colère” under “They said about us” section.

Small update 16/03: On 12/03 we asked a translation of “Logeren dichtbij de Etna” of http://sicilie.pagina.nl/ website. Mr. Henk Bisschop helped me translating “Stay (in a hotel ..) close to the Etna”. He was our guest in 2003 and we can find his history at www.geocities.com/henkbis/ETNA.htm and his pictures at www.geocities.com/geoparty2003.

16/03 New pictures added! I wish to share with you a pair of picture 50/60 years old. In next weeks I will add some new photos to complete Hotel’s History. First two pictures start from 1946, foundation to first restaurant hall. Thanks to a little column you can recognize first building in second picture. In next picture you will see as this first building will survive melted in a building that will become bigger every ten years until 1983 eruption. Click here to see Hotel Corsaro Etna photos including historic ones.

15/03 After 7 months it has finally ended 2004 eruption. Eruption continued for several months accumulating lava in desert “Valle del Bove” (‘Bove’ valley) with no harm for people or buildings.
Regarding website I have just finished to prepare 6 CDs full of Etna photos which will help our webmaster to complete new version of this website. If you wish to find a particular service in new website, well, it’s time to write us and ask!
I added new links to Friends & Links section (left column). A lot of websites tell about us. There is also a BBC interview about rebuilding on Etna under ‘They said about us section’ (always in left column).
About Google I am proud to be arrived in first position with “etna hotel” keywords and it is strange to consider that Italian words “alberghi etna” or “albergo etna” don’t provide information about Hotel Corsaro. I think it’s time to prepare Italian version of this website. Next step is anyway to push up position for other two keywords, “etna hotels”.

12/03 Special update: I add a link to Etna sci. Thanks to this website it is possible to know snow quantity and quality (fast link to snow conditions here) and visit more than 900 pages related to winter season.
I wish also to create a link to Der Ätna von Thomas Sävert which gave us more than 200 visits from his website. Thanks!
But I am especially in debt with Netcamera, a German website which provides us about 20% of all visits of past three years, more than 15.000 visitors discovered Hotel Corsaro thanks to their link to our Webcam service. It is incredible how many Webcams are present on this Website. It’s is in German but it’s easy to look for Webcams also for people who don’t speak this language.
Another thank to http://sicilie.pagina.nl/ and http://vulkaan.pagina.nl/. I didn’t understand a word, in them, but I hope they say something good about us. Could anybody help me to translate “Logeren dichtbij de Etna”? 🙂
Terra Vulcania offers a Webcam service specific for volcanoes of many different countries all over the world.

12/03: I am glad to see we are on first ten position on Google for all most important keywords like “Etna hotel” and “Etna Webcam”. This pushes me to accelerate works for new website Hotel Corsaro Etna work in progress totally stopped after my little accident. Next week I will provide about 500 Etna photos to our webmaster and soon we’ll see something interesting. My wish is to offer many more services than now, most of which not directly related to hotel but to Etna. I would like you’ll remember our new website when you’ll plan your next holiday around Etna. About Etna I’ll remember this as heaviest winter in last decade (and more) – Davide

09/03: added a link to a new service: finally it is possible to get real time forecasts for Etna from a weather station placed very close to our hotel. Etna Meteo is at your disposal clicking link in left column (Tempo Italia – Meteo). Forecasts are in Italian so, as little help, I can translate some words: neve=snow; pioggia=rain; nuvoloso=cloudy; coperto=covered; sereno=clean; mattino=morning; pomeriggio=afternoon; sera=evening)

07/03: Eruption continues to run under one of coldest winters we remember. I am sorry for lack of news but I could not work on website due to a little motorbike accident. I feel better now 🙂 Hi to all friends – Davide.