Lovely and peaceful place on the foothills of Mount Etna to stay a few days.
The house is situated on a plot that is shared with the host’s parents house. A well maintained and manicured garden with a really nice and clean pool separates the two but there is enough privacy. You will have your own entrance (driveway) as well.
From the pool you can actually see the top of Mount Etna if the weather is clear!
The house has a large living space and two double (en-suite) bedrooms. You’ll have everything you need as it is fully equipped.
The host herself lives in Milan and her friendly parents (who do not speak English) are your welcoming party.
My only complaint is the very noisy water pump adjacent to the house that woke us up during the night (for unexplainable reasons this pump activated randomly throughout the night). It would be nice if this is switched off at night.
As for the area: Ragalna is a lovely little town that has everything you need. Supermarket, bakery, fruit and vegetable shop, pizzeria, it’s all there at walking distance. Don’t bother driving down to bigger Paterno (the ugliest city I’ve seen on Sicily).
From the house you can easily drive up Mount Etna. Set your navigation for restaurant Crateri Silvestri, where you can park on the main car park. For €6 you can park all day. Get your parking ticket from a place labelled “Etna Bus Point” (makes sense, right? ;-)). If you pay for half a day, just know that half a day ends at 1pm (regardless of when you arrive). From the parking lot you can walk to the lowest crater, Silvestri.
Or follow signs for Funivia dell'Etna to take the cable cars up to about 2600 meters (€30 p.p.). From here you can walk higher or you can pay an additional €35 per person to take a mountain bus with guide up to about 2800 meters from where you could even climb higher. No point going up if it’s too cloudy though.
Other than visiting Etna there is not much to explore from Ragalna, as most destinations take you all the way down the mountain. The exception is a town called Bronte, where they grow Sicily’s pistachios and sell many products made with these yummy nuts.