Visiting Italy's volcanoes: what you can book

The alert level you need is published by the civil protection department and the supporting bulletins by INGV's Osservatorio Vesuviano, and as of September 2026 Campi Flegrei sits at yellow with an attention phase.

The bulletin is the source, not this page

INGV's Osservatorio Vesuviano publishes 4 products: a monthly surveillance bulletin, a weekly bulletin devoted to Campi Flegrei, web bulletins, and VONA notices for aviation. They live at ov.ingv.it. The alert level itself is a civil protection decision, informed by those measurements.

Any travel page that tells you a volcano is fine, including this one, is describing a moment. The correct way to use what follows is to read it, then open the current bulletin on the day you book and again on the day you go.

Campi Flegrei: yellow, attention phase

Campi Flegrei is at yellow alert with operational phase 2, attention, established by decree on October 30, 2025 and confirmed by the civil protection department on November 4, 2025 after the major hazards commission met. Yellow is the second of 4 levels and denotes medium departure from the volcano's equilibrium.

Phase 2 has practical content: reinforced monitoring, verification of civil protection measures, and non-structural prevention through training, information and exercises. None of that is evacuation, and none of it restricts a visit to Pozzuoli or the Solfatara area on its own.

Etna: 1,920 m by road, 2,500 m by cable car, 3,000 m with a guide

The only cable car on the volcano starts at Rifugio Sapienza on the south side, above Nicolosi, at 1,920 m, and climbs to 2,500⁵ m. From there the Tour 3000⁵ continues by 4x4 bus, replaced by snowcat in winter, to roughly 2,800⁵ m, and then on foot with a volcanological guide to 3,000⁵ m.

The operator publishes those altitudes and no prices or timetables on any reachable page: the ticket links all redirect to a booking engine. So this page gives you the shape of the ascent and not the cost, and you will find the cost only inside that engine.

The summit height 3 official sources disagree about

The INGV factsheet gives Etna 3,324⁶ m, the civil protection factsheet gives 3,350⁶ m, and an INGV drone survey in July 2024 measured 3,369⁶ m on the eastern rim of the Voragine. All three are official and current, and the highest is the newest.

The reason is not carelessness. The summit changes with every eruptive phase, and the earlier drone surveys recorded 3,354⁷ m on the South-East crater in December 2023 and 3,347⁷ m in August 2021. Any height you publish for Etna needs a year and a source attached, which is also true of any height a guide quotes you.

The UNESCO boundary is the empty part

Etna has been on the World Heritage list since 2013 under natural criterion viii, and the inscribed site is the uninhabited summit portion of the volcano: 19,237⁸ hectares of core zone with a 26,220⁸ hectare buffer. Its eruptive activity is documented for at least 2,700⁸ years, one of the longest continuous records anywhere.

That boundary is useful to a visitor because it matches the part with no villages, no vineyards and no shelter. Above the cable car you are in it, and the weather that closes the upper section closes it at short notice.

Vesuvius, in one line and a link

Trail 5 to the crater is sold online in advance only, under presidential decree 24 of June 29, 2026, which sets time bands and caps, with the ridge route on the north and east flanks closed unless authorized. The full ticketing arithmetic sits on seven hundred thousand under Vesuvius.

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