
Alcantara River
The river that generates art - from the volcanic cone of Etna, at 1250m, was born on the Alcantara River, a river with unusual characteristics that, in its ceaseless roll, has crossed over the centuries an extraordinary valley, in ancient times invaded by a large and violent eruption by the volcano Mojo (now extinct). A strange and mysterious phenomenon characterized the consolidation of the lava: it formed very slowly, a multitude of prisms practically perfect, that gave life to the masses rocky to say the least spectacular, thanks to today observable erosion of the river; L ' apotheosis of these spectacular sculptures of nature, it has contrada Lardera in the municipality of Motta Camastra: digging in time, the water led to the formation of real canyon, the current Alcantara Gorges, in reality a single throat (despite the name in the plural), with a length of 400 meters, a width average of 5 meters and a height that in some places more than 50 meters. Part of this is accessible to the throat (when the water level is not high - usually in summer) and allows you to admire closely the extraordinary natural environment and geological peculiarities of lava rock shaped, typical of those gray and imposing walls. But the river is beautiful beyond the gorges, where the water slides down through the gray basalt hemmed in white, creating small lakes, waterfalls and jumps surrounded by a dense vegetation. From Gaggi Calatabiano up to the river widens the riverbed to return to shrink near the mouth in the territory of Giardini-Naxos, where sailing in the famous bridge spans the Arab Al qantar (the bridge), which derived from the name of This beautiful river. The mouth is done in the Ionian Sea, specifically in San Marco.