The Aeolian Island - Sicily

The largest island in the Mediterranean, and with a strategically vital position, Sicily has a history and outlook derived from its erstwhile foreign rulers- from the Greeks who first settled the east coast in the eight century BC, trough a dazzling array of Phoenician, Carthaginians, Romans, Arabs, Normans, French and Spanish, to the Burbons seen off by Garibaldi in 1860.

The Aeolian islands tour

Volcanic in origin, the Aeolian islands are named after Aeolus, the Greek god who kept the winds he controlled shut tight in one of the islands’ many caves. According to Homer, Odysseus put into the Aeolians and was given a bag of wind to help him home, but his sailors opened it too soon and the ship was blown straight back to the port. More verifiably, the islands were coveted for their mineral wealth, the mining of obsidian (hard, glass-like lava) providing the basis for early prosperity, because it was the sharpest material available until people learned the art of smelting metals. Later their strategic importance attracted the Greeks, who settled on Lipari in 580 BC, but they later became a haven for pirates and a place of exile, a state of affairs that continued right into the twentieth century with the Fascists exiling their political opponents to Lipari.

The twentieth century saw mass emigration, mostly to Australia, and even now islands such as Panarea and Alicudi have just a hundred or so year-round inhabitants. It’s only recently that the islanders stopped scratching a subsistence living and started welcoming tourists, and these days during the summer months the population of the islands can leap from 10,000 or to 200,000. Every island is expensive, with prices in shops as well as restaurants reflecting the fact that most food is imported. But get out to the minor isles or come in blustery winter for a taste of what life was like on the islands twenty – or a hundred – years ago: unsophisticated, rough and beautiful.

Vulcano

Closest to the Sicilian mainland, VULCANO is the first port of call for ferries and hydrofoils, and you know when you are approaching it from the rotten-egg reek of sulphur. The novelty value of its smouldering volcano, and the chance to wallow in warm mud baths and swim above bubbling mid-sea fumaroles, make it a popular destination. Consequently Vulcano has been caressely developed, its little town ugly, and the promontory of Vulcanello studded with bland mass-market hotels. High prices and mass tourism make Vulcano best seen on a day-trip and as the coast of food on the islands is exorbitant, and the restaurants are unexceptional, you’re better off bringing a picnic.

The crater

The path up to the crater (acces eur. 3.50 in summer) begins about 1 km out of town on the road to Gelso, marked by a sign warning of the dangers of the inhaling volcanic gases. The ascent should take less than an hour. Wear hiking boots, as the ashy track is slippery, and follow the crater in an anticlockwise direction, so you are going downhill rather than up through the clouds of sulphurous emissions on the northern rim. Alternatively, there is an easier hike to Vulcanello, the volcanic pimple just to the north of the port, spewed out of the sea in 183 BC: start at the port and head past the Fanghi di Vulcano.

Fanghi di Vulcano and spa treatments

The Fanghi di Vulcano, or mud baths (small entrance fee in season), and offshore fumaroles lie a couple of minutes’ walk from the port- if your bathe, be prepared to stink of sulphur for a couple of days. There’s a black sand beach, five minutes’ walk beyond. Alternatively, at Via Lentia 1, the Oasi della salute is a naouveau riche spa with three thermal hydromassage pools and a beauty centre (May-Sept; 090 985 2093).

Lipari

LIPARI is the biggest and most heavily populated of the islands. Development has not been carefully controlled, and although parts of the island are beautiful and unspolit, getting there inevitabily means passing through villages cluttered with brassy holiday houses. The main port and capital, Lipari Town is a busy little place bunched between two harbours.

Lipari Town

The upper town within the fortress walls, the Castello, has been continuously occupied since Neolithic times. Alongside the well-marked excavations, there’s a tangle of churches flaking the main cobbled street, and several buildings that make up the separate sections of the Museo Archeologioco Eoliano (daily 9 am- 1.30 pm & 3.30-7 pm; eur. 6; 0909880174) – a lavish collection of Neolithic pottery, late Bronze Age atrefacts and decorated Greek and Roman vases and statues. Highlights are the towering pyramids of amphorae rescued from ancient shipwrecks, a stunning array of miniature Greek theatrical masks found in tombs, and unique polychrome painted pottery by an artist known as the Lipari Painter, the colours tinted with volcanic clays.

Quattrocchi and San Calogero

As you head out of town to the west coast, Quattrocchi (“four eyes”) provides much-photographed views over spiky faraglioni rocks to Vulcano. Beyond, just after the village of Pianoconte, a side road slinks down to the ancient thermal baths at San Calogero hidden behind a long-disused spa hotel: there’s usually an unofficial guide to show you around and allow you a dip, if you dare, in the scummy 57°C Roman pool.

Monte Pilato

Above Campobianco, where pumice workings have left huge white scars on the hillside, a path leads up the slopes of Monte Pilato (476 m), thrown up in the eruption from which all the island’s pumice originally came. The volcano last erupted around 700 AD, leading to the virtual abandonment of Lipari town and creating the obsidian flows of Rocche Rosse and Forgia Vecchia, both of which can be climbed. Although it is overgrown with vegetation, you can still make out the outline of the crater at the top, and find black veins of obsidian.

Porticello

From the main road above the stony beach at Porticello, a road (and a quicker, more direct path) winds down to a small bay, which sunbathers share with the forlorn Heath Robinson-style pumice-work machinery that connects the white hillside with the pier. The deep blue waters here with their bed of white pumice sand are great for snorkeling, but be aware that there’s no shade and the pebble beach can reach scalding temperatures. A couple of summer vans sell cool drinks and snacks.

Salina

North of Lipari, SALINA’s two extinct volcanic cones rise out of a fertile land that produces capers and white Malvasia. It’s excellent walking country, with marvelous vantage points over the other islands. Tourism came to Salina far later than Lipari and Vulcano, with the happy result that development and building have been strictly controlled. Although you can bring a car in low season, there is a reliable bus service between all the main villages.

Santa Marina di Salina

The principla island port is SANTA MARINA DI SALINA on the east coast - a relaxed village ranged along Via Risorgimento, a single, pedestrianized main street where chic boutiques and down-to-earth food shops occupy the ground floors of substantial nineteenth-century houses built by those who made their fortune selling sweet wine (Malvasia) to the British. Most lost their fortunes in 1890 when phylloxera arrived, destroying ninety percent of the vines, and prompting a mass exodus to Australia. At the end of Via Risorgimento, cut down the Lungomare- where steps lead down to Punta Barone, a little beach with swimming in front of the perplexing remains of an ancient Roman fish farm. As you head back to the port along the Lungomare, there are more swimming spots in waters protected by the sea defences, and another beach in front of the main piazza, close enough to the port to let you have a last swim as you wait for your ferry or hydrofoil.

Lingua

LINGUA, sitting by a pretty lagoon 3km south, makes a pleasant alternative base to Santa Marina. It has two small museums In exquisitely restored Aeolian houses overlooking the lagoon with its skewwhiff lighthouse: a small ethnographig museum (May- Oct Tues- Sun 9 am- 1pm & 3-6 pm; free) displays examples of rustic art and island culture- mainly kitchen utensils and mill equipment, much of it fashioned from lavic rock, while the archeological museum (May- Oct Tues-Sun 9am-1pm & 3-6 pm; free) has finds from Bronze Age and roman Salina. Head through the alleyway at the side of the ethnographic museum and you’ll be bang in the centre of Lingua’s seafront piazza, hub of Salina summer life, with several little flights of steps leading down to a pebble beach.

Capo Faro and Malfa

Salina’s only road climbs from the harbor at Santa Marina and traces the coast north, turning west at Capo Faro, with its vineyards and a lighthouse. A couple of kilometers beyond here, the road winds in to MALFA, Salina’s largest village, set back from the sea. Though quite busy with traffic in the centre, it has an appealing little fishing port tucked away at the foot of cliffs, reached by either a devilishly twisting road or paved stepped footpaths. Its stony beach, backed by dramatic cliffs, is officially closed because of the danger of falling rocks. If this is still the case, do as the locals do and swim instead from the harbour. If you’re around in late afternoon, don’t miss watching the sunset from the cliff-top bar of the Santa Isabel hotel (Eater-Oct).

Pollara

Just out of Malfa, a minor road (served by several buses day) snakes off west to secluded POLLARA, raised on a cliff above the sea and occupying a crescent-shaped crater from which Salina’s last eruption took place some 13,000 years ago. Scenes from the 1994 film Il postino were shot in a house here which you can occasionally rent: call Pippo Cafarella ( 339 425 3684). Pollara’s beach, which also featured in Il postino, diminishes every year, and it has now been closed because of the danger of falling rocks. Swim instead from the ancient fishing-boat ramps reached by a cobbled stepped footpath from below the Postino house. Bar L’Oasis has lilos, kayaks, sun umbrellas and masks to rent, and will bring sandwiches and drinks down from the bar.

Rinella

Most ferries and hydrofoils call at the little port of RAINELLA, on the island’s south coast. It’s a drowsy place with something of a Greek island feel, its higgledy-piggledy fishermen’s houses clustered above a black sand beach. A couple of good bars make it a tempting destination for an aperitif watching the sunset over Filicudi. Buses meet most boat arrivals on the quayside (and call here several times a day). Spilling along a ridge above the town, the little village of Leni has an appealingly sleepy feel and fantastic views over to Lipari and Vulcano.

Panarea

Only 3km by 1,5km, PANAREA is the smallest, loveliest, most stylish and ridiculously expensive of the Aeolians, and in summer its harbours, hotels and villas overflow with an international crowd of designers, models, pop stars, film stars, royalty and their lackeys. In low season, however, the island is an utter delight, accommodation prices are relatively sane, and three-hour walk up the peak of Pizzo Corvo and hugging the fractured coastline is one of the most stunning anywhere in Italy.
Cars are banned, and the only transport is by Vespa or electric golf cart. Panarea’s couple of hundred year-round inhabitants live in three linked hamlets on the eastern side of the island, Ditella, San Pietro and Drauto, with the boats docking at San Pietro. Thirty minutes’ walk south of San Pietro, clearly signposted, Zimmari is the island’s one sandy beach. From here, a steep path leads up to Punta Milazzese, where you can see the foundation of 23 Bronze Age huts, with the glorious cove of Cala Junco below. Just before the Bronze Age village is the beginning of the well-marked track up Pizzo Corvo, circling the entire island and ending up a Calcara to the north of town, where there are steaming fumaroles on the beach.

Stromboli

Despite the regularity of the volcanic explosions, people have always lived on STROMBOLI. It is in a constant state of activity, throwing up fountains of fire and glowing rock every twenty minutes or so. A full eruption happens on average every ten years. A flow of lava is often visible from afar, slowly sliding down the northwest side of the volcano into the sea. In January 2003 there was a colossal landslide, triggering a 10m-high tsunami that inundated the coast of Sicily and Calabria.
Most of the many hotels and rooms to let on the island are on the eastern side, in the adjacent parishes of San Vincenzo, San Bartolo and Piscità, often grouped together as Stromboli Town and something of a chic resort since Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman immortalized the place in the 1949 film Stromboli. From the quayside, the lower coastal road runs around to the beach of Ficogrande and, further on, Piscità, where there’s a series of tiny lava coves with ashy sand. It’s around 25 minutes on foot from the port to here. The other road from the dock cuts up to the Piazza San Vincenzo, which offers glorious views of the offshore islet of Strombolacchio.
On the other side of the island, accessible by hydrofoil, the hamlet of Ginostra is a laidback place of steeply terraced, white Aeolian houses, where the only way of getting about is on foot on donkey. Hydrofoils run back to Stromboli Town twice a day in summer (once daily in winter), but these are susceptible to cancellation because of rough wathers.

Filicudi

FILICUDI, the larger of the two most westerly islands, is a fascinating place, the contours of is sheer slopes traced with steep stone terraces and crisscrossed by stone muse tracks. It is an island best explored on foot, which is just as well, as there is no public transport . The tarmac road that connects the small settlements gives a false impression of the island, making villages seem far apart when they are, in fact, just a few minutes’ walk away: most of the track are pretty steep, though, occasionally following, but mostly cutting between, the ancient terraces carved into the slopes of maquis and prickly pear.
The main settlement, Filicudi Porto, has a couple of shops, bars, hotels and pharmacy. Inland, accessible by road ore mule track, are three whitewashed villages, Valdichiesa, Rocche Ciauli and Pecorini. And down on the west coast, about 3km by road from the port, is the lovely little seaside village of Pecorini Mare.

Alicudi

End-of-the-line Europe doesn’t come much more remote than ALICUDI, a stark cone rising from the sea two and a half hours from Milazzo by hydrofoil. Electricity arrived only in the 1990s, and the sole way of getting about is on foot, although there are six donkeys to carry heavy loads. There are just eighty year-round inhabitants, while superstitions and sightings of ghosts abound – as does the conviction that some Alicudari are blessed with the power to control the weather and divert cyclones. Up the sheer slope behind the tiny port, terraced smallholdings and whitewashed flat-roofed houses linked by lava-paved paths cling on for dear life, among bursts of bougainvillea.

Hiking on Alicudi

Most of the hiking here is up stepped tracks that seem to have been designed with giants in mind, so be prepared for a good deal of calf-work. If you don’t fancy hauling yourself to the top of the island (675m;2h), you’ll still get plenty of exercise climbing up to the church of San Bartolomeo, Otherwise, follow the path north out of the port behind the church of the Carmine, from where it’s an easy walk to the narrow stony beach of Bazzina, with a couple of smallholdings behind it.

Sicilian cuisine, sweets, street food and sardines

Sicily’s food has been influenced by the island’s endless list of invaders, including Greeks, Arabs, Normans and Spanish, even the English, each of them leaving behind them traces of their gastronomy. Dishes such as orange salads, unctuous sweet-sour aubergine and, of course, couscous evoke North Africa, while Sicily’s most distinctive pasta dish, Spaghetti con le sarde – whit sardines, pine nuts, wild fennel and raisins – trought to date back to the first foray into Sicily, at Mazara, by an Arab force in 827. The story goes that the army cooks where ordered to forage around for food, and found sardines at the port, wild fennel growing in the fields and raisins drying in the vineyards. Religious festivals too, are often associated with foods: for example at San Giuseppe, on March 19, altars are made of bread, and at Easter you will find pasticcerie full of sacrificial lambs made of marzipan, and Gardens of Adonis (trays of sprouting lentils, chickpeas and other pulses) placed before church altars to symbolize the rebirth of Christ. The last has its roots in fertility rites that predate even the arrival of the Greeks to the island.

Sicily is famous for its sweets too, like rich cassatella, sponge cake filled with sweet ricotta cream and covered with pistachio marzipan, and cannoli – crunchy tubes of deep – fried pastry stuffed with sweet ricotta. Street food is ubiquitous in cities such as Palemo, dating back to the to the eighteenth century when wood was rationed, and few people were able to cook at home: pizzas. Naturally, fish such as anchovies, sardines, tuna and swordfish are abundant – indeed, it was in Sicily that the technique of canning tuna was invented. Cheeses are pecorino, provolone, caciocavallo and, of course, the sheep’s – milk ricotta which goes into so many of the sweet dishes. Traditionally wine-making in Sicily was associated mainly with sweet wines such as Malvasia and the fortified Marsala – in the nineteenth century many a fortune was made providing Malvasia to the Napoleonic army – but the island has also made a name for itself as a producer of quality everyday wines found in supermarkets throughout Italy, such as Corvo, Regaleali, Nicosia, Settesoli and Tria. There are superb wines too – notably Andrea Frenchetti’s prize – winning Passopisciaro, from the north slopes on Etna – as well as wines across a wide price range from producers such as Tosca d?Alemrita, Baglio Hopps, Planeta, Morgante and Murgo.