Travel Guide Gorges De L’alcantara

The deep and wild Alcantara gorges are born in the millenary bed of an ancient lava flow coming from the Moio Alcantara (crater off-centre with respect to the central crater of Etna), whose lava, in the prequaternary period, flowed into the Ionian Sea shores. The magmas spewed out by the Moio crater, in their cooling phase, were transformed into columns of lavic basalt, structuring themselves by a curious phenomenon into multiple perfect prisms.Over the following millennia, the Moio flow slowly eroded in contact with the frozen waters of the Alcantara River, and was transformed into a gorge, descending from 1,250 m above sea level to the source, along a 48 km long route. The Alcantara River Park therefore extends over a dozen municipalities (Calatabiano, Castiglione di Sicilia, Francavilla di Sicilia, Gaggi, Giardini Naxos, Graniti, Malvagna, Moio Alcantara, Motta Camastra, Randazzo, Roccella Valdemone and Taormina).