Isole Eolie

The Aeolian Islands, beauty and relaxation.

We spent 6 nights on the islands, taking the Liberty Lines hydrofoil out to Salina and lounging in Malfa the first three nights.  I do mean lounging, we walked a little, swam, watched the sunset from Pollara one evening (the west side of the island) and I finished my buddy's book Radio Silence, its a good read about my friend's experiences and struggles with war and peace.  He's a great guy and I am thankful to have served with him and call him a friend.

The time on Salina was fun, here's a few shots:

Instead of umbrella and chair rental here they rented air mattresses due to the premature sand.

Sunset from Pollara.

Timelapse of the sunset:

My Pollara friends.

View from our apartment in Malfa, not too shabby eh?

Some nice smoked fish, with warm bread and chilled butter (ice is a rarity), some mussel and potato stuffed ravioli and swordfish in Malfa.

Spiaggia dello Scario video, if you listen closely you can hear the premature sand rolling as the waves retreat.

Salina was super relaxing, luckily when we left it was for one of Kathie's favorite places in the world, Stomboli.  Its just not everyday you can swim in the med from a black sand beach and look at an active volcano.  We stayed in the same hotel as the last time we visited 2 years ago, Hotel Ossidiana.  Its very close to the port on the main drag and the right price for the amenities, the people are very friendly and the prosecco is discounted so the tables you see are great for appetivo time.

Who doesn't like discounted prosecco, two glasses and chips for 6.40 Euro, sign me up!

So the volcano is Stromboli, we hiked it last time which was great but this time we just took it easy.  We did get a nice personal tour from two university students who spent about 20 minutes describing the volcano and showing us the different types of eruptions and materials spewed from inside earth.  They were funny and spoke descent English although not confident in their ability to do so, as we've found with many Italians, they typically speak much better English than they give themselves credit.

We signed up for an evening cruise through the couple that ran the stand in the picture above.  They took about 15 of us out that evening on their fishing boat to the sciara del fuoco to watch the volcano erupt while serving a little appertivo.  We sat on the bow as we first cruised out and around Strombolicchio, the remnants of an old volcano, it was very interesting to see up close.  The captain showed us the many formations in the rock that, with a little imagination, display images such as an eagle, a horse, the pope, and a rabbit.

We then headed out to drift in the viewing area, seeing 3 separate large eruptions and a couple smaller ones, it was very cool watching lava shoot about 100feet into the air while hearing the earth rumble.  My pics don't do it justice.

My lady enjoying a pizza and some wine, with the moon over her shoulder and the volcano in her view, after our little cruise.

The next day we spent time on a nice beach, renting chairs and an umbrella for the full day.  The water was a great temperature and calm, but the jellyfish were out.  We were warned to keep a lookout but I was reading in the chair when Kathie got stung.  She was fine by the next day but henceforth the name of the private beach left of the port on Stromboli is spiaggia dello jellyfish.

View from the main square. 

Lunch with a view.

 A big ass cactus.

Some (more) delicious swordfish.

This will be missed terribly.

A beautiful catamaran.  The wealth anchored around Stromboli was on full display from the beach, lots more money than this guy will ever see.  Come on Powerball!

  

The Aeolian Islands are such a beautiful part of our world, I miss being on island time already.

Ciao a tutti!