We pre-booked cable car tickets and drove in our hire car. The drive is good but be aware of the route you take - we followed google maps and ended up on hairpin bends up the side of the mountain.
There is parking at the cable car stop but it is quite limited and there is no opportunity for on-road parking. There is a cafe down the road but parking there was way harder than at the cable car place.
The volcanic landscape is amazing and we really enjoyed the ability to stop in a couple of parking areas and wander out into the moonscape.
When we went you could buy slightly cheaper cable car tickets that didn’t include the audio guide, but these sold out first so we got the audio guide ones. To actually get the guide you had to give them something silly like €200 or your passport as a deposit per person. We declined, but it took some convincing them that we were t going to complain later that we didn’t get our audio guide.
We’ve also done a trip to the observatory up there (we did this by coach) and then stargazing. It was really interesting to see the observatory but the stargazing was a bit lacklustre, despite the enthusiasm of the guides. We spent a lot of time queueing to look at blobs down telescopes but the stories to go along with it were great.
We went in December and the temperature difference between sea level (26 degrees), cable car base station and the ‘top’ of the mountain (we didn’t climb to the top although there are still some good walks to be done without the need for the permit) was remarkable.