The Alcantara river basin covers an area of about 573 square km; its main branch springs from the crags of Chirico, Musarra (1,254m above sea level), Pietracavallo, Serra Mosca, Rocca S.Giorgio, Porcheria, Monte Parco, and Punta Inferno (1,480 m above sea level) mountains and its waters flow between the Etna volcano in the south and the southern spurs of Nebrodi and Peloritani mountains in the north, reaching the Ionian Sea after about 52 km. As far as the volcanological aspect is concerned, the Alcantara riverbed was interested during prehistoric and proto-historic times by lava flows which repeatedly obstructed or changed its course.
Near the basaltic lithotypes, the watercourse locally created the characteristic “ravines” with dozens of meters high walls characterized by sub-vertical column structures that can be “organ-pipe shaped”, slightly bent and “harp-shaped”, “fan-shaped”, placed horizontally as a stack of wood or chaotically fractured, more or less evident according to the thickness and the cooling time of the lava.
In the upper part of the river basin the lake Gurrida formed, the sole example of lava-dammed lake in Sicily deriving from a lava flow obstructing the bed of the river Flascio.
In the territory of Randazzo, the river meets the slope of Etna, where it fills, lives, and becomes the son of the “Mountain”. Behind the ruins of the Castle, in the territory of Francavilla di Sicilia, there are precious evidences of industrial archaeology. Here the kinetic energy of water transforms itself into electric energy, according to the well-known laws of physics: through old turbines, sluice gates, and then down to the country hamlet of Motta Camastra, and then up in a pressure water pipe, the first fall and… here you are the light, the first production of electric energy between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. Thanks to the presence of this precious source of energy, the 19th century tourists traveled by carriage from Taormina to Francavilla to reach the health resorts (with sulfurous waters) and stayed in the Hotel du Chateaux "avec la lumière electrique", as we can read in a tourist brochure published in Switzerland. But here this water also transforms its kinetic energy into mechanical energy to make the grindstones of the many mills turn, as many mills as the fragments of the memory to recover.
In the Municipality of Motta Camastra (ME), on the slope of Messina, there is the only cave deriving from volcanic sliding, difficult to reach, but wonderful to admire: for its size, it is called "The Cave of the One Hundred Horses".
From Gaggi to the town of Calatabiano, the riverbed becomes larger and then again narrower near the mouth, in the territory of Giardini Naxos, where it runs through the bays of the famous Arab bridge "Al qantar" (meaning “the bridge”), from which the name of this wonderful watercourse derives, an ecological corridor in a Valley of Wonders, as it has been defined the Alcantara Valley in a promotional brochure of the Leader project "Fiume Alcantara". Besides the Leader II project "Fiume Alcantara", also the PIT Valle Alcantara (integrated territorial project) of Francavilla di Sicilia or the Territorial Pact Valle Alcantara with seat in Taormina witness the new planning attention paid by the current management to the use of Community funds for the enhancement and revitalization of this wonderful natural resource.