Vesuvius and Etna: who decides how close visitors can go

Two volcanoes, two rulebooks

Vesuvius and Etna are both active volcanoes that people visit, but the question "can I go up?" has a different kind of answer on each. On Vesuvius the answer comes from one body and one page: a national park whose authorised seller offers timed online tickets for the crater path.[1] On Etna it comes from a dozen town halls, each issuing its own ordinance for its own slice of the summit, under an alert system that can close the high ground automatically.[7][6]

The two mountains are also in different states. INGV's Vesuvius Observatory describes Vesuvius as quiescent, with its last eruption in 1944.[3] Etna's own UNESCO page quotes the World Heritage citation describing almost continuous eruptive activity from its summit craters.[5]

Vesuvius: one trail, one authority

The crater visit is trail No. 5, "Il Gran Cono", run by the Vesuvius National Park authority. The park's page says it starts from a square at 1,000 metres in the municipality of Ercolano, at the end of the provincial road up the mountain, and that parking is not allowed on the square itself; parking along the road is managed by the Comune di Ercolano. The park recommends buying parking only after the crater ticket.[1]

The ticketing rules on that page are specific.

• Tickets are sold only online, and vesuviopark.vivaticket.it is named as the only authorised seller.[1]
• For each day, 50 tickets per 10-minute slot go on sale 30 days ahead.[1]
• When those run out, 10 "last minute" tickets per slot are released 30 minutes before it starts, buyable only through the wifi near the entrance and at most five per email address; since 11 April 2026 they carry the buyer's name.[1]

The park's visitor protocol, which the page says was approved by a presidential resolution of 29 June 2026, adds the rules that make this a managed visit rather than a free walk.[1] Each group must be accompanied above 1,000 metres by guides of the Presidio Permanente Vulcano Vesuvio. The cap is 360 walkers an hour, let in as three groups of 20 every ten minutes. The high path along the crater summit on the northern and eastern sides stays closed to visitors. Ticketing and the trail close automatically on days when the regional civil protection authority issues a weather alert at orange or above.

The page is not internally tidy, and a reader should know where. It gives two different pairs of ticket prices in two places, and the "download the full protocol" link points to a 2024 file while the text quotes the 2026 resolution. It also mentions a second entrance gate at Ottaviano, at 1,050 metres, as still being activated.[1] XTOUR does not repeat prices or times; read the current page.

The volcano's height is another small disagreement. The park gives 1,277 metres, INGV's observatory 1,281 metres.[3] The park describes the crater as currently 450 metres across and 300 metres deep.[2]

Etna: a park, a dozen mayors and an alert system

The Etna Park is a regional park, established by decree of the President of the Sicilian Region on 17 March 1987, covering 59,000 hectares and twenty municipalities.[4] Its high ground is also a World Heritage Site: the park's UNESCO page says Mount Etna was inscribed on 21 June 2013 under criterion (viii), and that the inscribed area almost coincides with the park's strictly protected Zone A.[5]

None of the park pages XTOUR read offers a summit ticket. The park's "Ordinanze Sindaci" page explains that the mayors of the summit municipalities issue ordinances, according to the volcanic risk at the time, that either allow free excursions up to set altitudes or allow them only with guides. The page lists ordinances for twelve municipalities, from Adrano and Belpasso to Sant'Alfio and Zafferana Etnea. That list does not match the thirteen municipalities that Belpasso's ordinance names as reaching the summit zone: the park's page includes Milo, which Belpasso's list does not, and has no entry for Castiglione di Sicilia or Piedimonte Etneo, which Belpasso's list does.[7] In the park's list some ordinances carry dates in July and August 2026, others have none, and Nicolosi's links to an ordinance of 13 November 2023.[9][6] XTOUR's reading is that the list is a library of ordinances, not a single statement of what is open today.

The zones and the alert phases

Belpasso's ordinance of 10 August 2026 sets out the framework most fully of the ordinances XTOUR read, and Bronte's uses the same zone definitions.[8][7] It defines a Summit Zone, covering the summit craters, the upper Valle del Bove down to 1,700 metres and broadly everything above 2,500 metres on the southern, western and northern slopes, and inside it a Permanent Hazard Zone (ZPP) around the active craters where, in its words, hazard is always high whatever the state of the volcano. It names thirteen municipalities that reach the summit zone. It also describes ETNAS, the rapid alert system of INGV's Etna Observatory, in operation since 1 April 2022. The same ordinance quotes a regional civil-protection note of September 2025 saying that, without a suitable ordinance, the Permanent Hazard Zone stays closed on the territory of the municipality concerned.[7]

Under the ordinary "attention" phase, the Belpasso ordinance allows visits to the Permanent Hazard Zone only with licensed alpine or volcanological guides, with a helmet, at most ten walkers per guide, groups starting 15 minutes apart and no more than 300 people a day. It keeps everyone at least 300 metres from the base of the South-East Crater cone and 50 metres from active lava flows.[7] When a pre-alarm is issued, the zone closes to everyone; under an alarm, the whole summit zone above 2,500 metres closes. The ordinance makes both closures automatic on the alert, without a new decision by the mayor.[7]

A standing rule and an emergency order

Bronte's ordinance of 14 August 2026 is a different kind of document.[8] Belpasso's sets standing rules for each phase; Bronte's reacts to one notice. It records a regional civil-protection notice of 13 August reporting that the activity level had been changed from "F2" to "F1", a high probability of imminent lava fountains, with the pre-alarm phase and the closure of the Permanent Hazard Zone, and it suspends all excursions in that zone on Bronte's territory until the emergency conditions end. The same ordinance says the notice dated 13 August reached the town hall on 7 August, so its own dates do not agree.[8]

The two do not contradict each other. Under Belpasso's own text, the pre-alarm that Bronte reported would also have closed the zone in Belpasso automatically.[8][7] Neither ordinance says what phase was in force on 10 August. The practical point is that the alert phase, not the calendar or the municipality, decides what is open, and XTOUR does not know the phase on any given day.

The cable car is a company, not the authority

The Funivia dell'Etna is run by a company, Russo Morosoli Invest S.p.A., not by a public authority. Its own website describes it as the volcano's only cable car, rising from 1,920 to 2,500 metres, with 4x4 buses and volcano guides continuing to almost 3,000 metres, and gives its ticket office at the Rifugio Sapienza square.[10] Its page's descriptions of safety are its own, not the park's or the mayors'. Nicolosi's 2023 ordinance lists the Funivia among the bodies that receive the official alert messages, alongside the mayors, the park and the guides' association.[9]

Even Etna's height depends on who is asked. The park's UNESCO page gives 3,340 metres, its general page about 3,350 metres, and the cable-car operator 3,403 metres.[10][4][5] XTOUR does not choose between them.

Side by side

What XTOUR does not tell you

XTOUR does not publish opening times, prices, travel times, trail difficulty or any safety assessment for either volcano, and it does not know Etna's alert phase or which ordinances are in force on a given day. The pages above were read on 9 October 2026 and change often, especially Etna's.

For Vesuvius in the context of the buried Roman towns, see Pompeii, Herculaneum or Vesuvius compared. Naples is a base for Vesuvius, not a container for it.