La Dolce Vita

I’ve just come back from the Eolian Islands, an archipelago of 7 beautiful little islands scattered on the north coast of Sicily.

Whilst I was there I visited two of the Islands on a full day excursion, I absolutely loved them and I can’t wait to go back.

We took a boat trip from Milazzo which stopped half day in Panarea and half day in Stromboli.

Panarea is the furthest away, the journey took around 1 and half hours but was fun. The journey itself was a sightseeying at sea, the most impressive sight we passed was a beautiful deserted island and a rock with a lighthouse and nothing else reacheable by steps directly from the deep water. The waters are dotted by swish yatches, the guide said Lady Diana liked to spend time in summer around here.

Once arrived at Panarea we walked around the small street, there were no motorised vehicles here so no cars and no noise, the electric golf buggys were waiting by the dock giving tourists a lift to their hotels and to deliver goods to the shops. There was only one street that takes you uphill towards the inside of the island, this road took us to a beautiful big church where the views were just stunning. There was an older lady selling souvenirs who lived permanently on this island, I asked her what was it like to be there in winter and she just simply replied it’s like heaven, with warm sunny days. 450 habitants live here permenantly, I didn’t think the island was big enough to hold this many people. I was impressed with this place. This is a place where you need nothing, spend most of the day bare foot and can easily buy the freshest fish possibly still alive, a place where you can get away from it all and relax!

We sailed to Stromboli in the afternoon. The journey to stromboli was short and spectacular. We sailed around the active volcano and could see its puffs of smoke as we sailed past.

On arrival we went straight to the beach with black soft sand glittering in the sunshine and small pebbled of lava in the sea bed. We heard the volcano rumble a couple of times within the space of an hour. In stromboli there is a small village and some restaurants on the seafront.

At sunset we set sail and stayed around the volcano waiting to see lava eruptions for an hour or so, we spent enough time to watch and get some great pictures of the vulcano erupting and giving us the most spectacular scenes.

I absolutely loved the holiday and seeing the volcano erupting was a once in a lifetime experience. To the next time to discover the rest of the islands.