In summer time the population increases 10 times, hotels and restaurants "shot" incredible and very high prices. At the end of September these isles go back to their normal life. To find an hotel room is quite easy as well as to have a table in a restaurant. But visiting the Aeolian isles not in season means to have clouds as travelling companion, and I had this experience in October 2003. The nature, that is still wild in this constellation formed by seven isles, appears in its full beauty and reality. The presence of Aeolus is more evident as the god and his sons slash the surface of the Tyrrhenian and
the faces of local inhabitants and of a few tourists.
The wise policy of the local administration has protected the beauties of this heaven preventing the indiscriminate development of mass tourism and the rising of holiday villages that could only spoil landscapes and habitat.
The traditional houses are built with "indigenous" materials like tuff, pumice, lava and sometime they are decorated with terracotta tiles.
All the seven isles are volcano-genic but each one has its own personality.
Lipari is, perhaps, the isle and the town more visited of the entire archipelago. The small town is commanded by an acropolis that is the witness of the several centuries story of the isle. Here there are some simple Greek tombs ageing some thousands years before Christ; nearby there is a Roman amphitheatre. I visited also the cathedral consecrated to Saint Bartholomew, it has been built during the 12th century and includes an interesting Romanesque kiosk. To learn about the civilization and the culture of the Aeolian isles I visited the local archaeological museum. A place that everybody must visit in Lipari is Canneto and its white sandy beaches (the colour comes from the pumice sediments).
Vulcano, that the ancients called "isle of fire", right now is better know for its nightlife during summertime. Myself, I remember this isle for the possibility to have curative and beauty treatments with mud baths, mud coming from its slimy beaches.
Filicudi and Alicudi at first instance they look similar as both are heaven on the earth, but they are different. In Alicudi you don't find pubs, discotheques, pizzerias and please note that even there is not a newsstand. Filicudi opened its first road connecting the three majors inhabited places only two years ago. The coastline of Filicudi is without doubts the most beautiful and spectacular of the whole archipelago and the "Grotta del Bue Marino" (sea ox cave) is a beauty that the whole world would like to have. Inside the prehistoric village of Filo Braccio have been discovered some stones aged two thousand years before Christ. In 1544 the Turkish pirate Kharraddin, better known as the Red Beard, deported all the inhabitants of Aeolian isles to some North-Africa countries where he sold them as slaves. To repopulate the isles the Aeolian rulers brought in farmers and fishermen from all around the Italian peninsula and this help to know the reason of the very strange dialect spoken here.
The volcano Stromboli, that gives the name to the homonymous isle, is still in activity. When I was there I climbed up to the crater but I don't know if it is still possible as I think everybody remember the strong eruption of April 2004. I remember that when I was a teenager I watched a movie called "Stromboli" with actress Ingrid Bergman that later became the wife of Rossellini the famous movie director that directed also this movie.
A more recent Italian movie "Il Postino" (The Postman) has been a good way to let the world knowing the isle of Salina that I elect as the most beautiful and green isle of the Aeolian archipelago. The farms are located on the slopes of two extinct volcanoes and this particular soil helps in obtaining marvellous results. The name of the isle comes from the ancients mines of salt that are dated back to the Roman Empire. The place better known is without doubts the beach of Pollara.
The seventh and last isle is Panarea that I didn't visited as I don't like the place patronized by VIPs (but also because I hadn't spare time).Finally the Aeolian isles are a destination that everybody, who wish to know more about Italy, must visit, at least once in his life.
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Advantages: Unusual and memorable experience; cheap! Disadvantages: Reliant on good weather; noisy; you must be reasonably fit (although not necessarily a climber!)
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