A kilometre of black sand between Sant'Anna and Mascali, the lava-built villages around it, and the Ionian a hundred metres from the door. Below: the places, the water, the months when both are at their best.
Etna built this coast — its east flank rolls down to the Ionian in a long, slow gradient of vineyards, lemon groves, and black volcanic soil. Where the lava reached the sea it left dark sand; where it stopped short, it left fields. The four houses sit on the soft seam between the two.
The villages along this stretch are young by Sicilian standards. Mascali was destroyed by the 1928 eruption — lava came down from Nave del Curto and reached the Ionian in two days, taking the old centre with it — and was rebuilt in the early 1930s with wider streets and lower roofs. Sant'Anna sits a little higher, spared by the lava flow; Fondachello, the beach frazione, was an empty stretch of sand until summer houses started arriving in the 1960s.
"What the volcano took, the sea returned. Slowly, in dark grains."— Local saying, repeated by every grandmother
Today the coast is quiet most of the year. July and August fill the beach village; September empties it again. Italians from Catania come on weekends; the locals run the bakeries, the trattorie, the cellars. The four of us rent out the houses we grew up in, because there are too many for one family to live in at once.
Small, residential, set back from the lane.
A quiet frazione of the municipality of Mascali — eight blocks long, three deep. The houses look low and pale. Two of ours, Galatea and Ionia, sit across the lane from each other here. The bakery is at the corner, the trattoria three minutes south.
Rebuilt after the lava of 1928.
In November 1928 lava from Etna reached the sea here and erased the old town. What you see today was rebuilt in the years that followed — wider streets, lower roofs, a square that holds the Sunday market. Beatrice and Francesca are in the seaside frazione, ten minutes downhill.
The beach village, three kilometres long.
The seaside frazione that runs between Sant'Anna and Mascali — basically one long road parallel to the beach, lined with low summer houses. Where the kids ride bikes to the public beach gate, where the gelato man passes at six. All four of our houses are within a five-minute drive of it.
The harbour, the fish market, the Saturday morning.
Ten minutes south. The Marina di Riposto is where the fishing boats come in at dawn, and the morning market opens at seven in the harbour shed. The town itself is small and entirely walkable — a baroque church, a couple of bars, two granita places that locals disagree about.
The four houses are within a six-kilometre run along the same coast. Catania airport sits 38 km south, Taormina 18 km north, Etna's first rifugio 42 km inland. None of it takes more than an hour.
Drive up to Rifugio Sapienza or hike from Piano Provenzana. We can arrange a guide.
Twenty minutes north along the coast. Best at golden hour, after the cruise crowds leave.
Long pebble-and-sand beaches right at the door of all four houses.
Family-run, sea-front, the swordfish involtini are the reason to come back.
Pick up the day's catch at 7am from the harbour — bring it back, cook on the terrace.
Cantina at Passopisciaro — volcanic Nerello Mascalese, opens for tastings most afternoons.