Wednesday – Lipari and Stromboli (Nature’s Fireworks)

After the manic metropolis of Palermo, it was a pleasure to arrive at the little island off the north of Sicily mainland, called Lipari. We dropped anchor a short way out from the small harbour and little town of the same name.

We didn’t have any tours today, so after a leisurely breakfast, we took the tender boat ashore to take a closer look.

Lipari was lovely. From the tiny harbour, we followed the narrow streets towards the town centre, stopping off at a small, covered archaeological site before climbing the steps to the Archaeological Museum stituated on top of the Acropolis, a site raise above, and overlooking, the harbour and town; a place where the original Lipari was founded many centuries ago.

It was fun looking around the old buildings and taking in the extensive views. Inside the old prison buildings were several modern art installations, some of which we liked, some which we didn’t; many of which we didn’t really understand, and simply begged the question ‘why?’ We looked around the old cathedral and bought a ticket to look around the museum, which was quite interesting. The truth is; we thought the ticket we’d bought was to look around the whole place, Cathedral n’ all, but it turned out that our ticket was only for entance into the museum. Had we known beforehand, we probably wouldn’t have bothered with the ticket since there was plenty else to see, such as an amphitheatre, where a small group of young actors appeared to be in the process of being tutored. It looked to me like it could have been a rehearsal for Planet of the Apes, but maybe I was just missing something…

After our visit to the Archeaological Museum, we descended back down into the town and found a small restaurant on the main street for lunch. Since ‘Hamburgers’ was the only thing on the menu that we understood, that was what we had, along with a couple of drinks.

An ice cream on the harbourside before taking the tender boat back to the ship rounded off the day nicely.

Later that evening, we sailed past Stromboli, an active volcano that has been described as ‘The Lighthouse of the Mediterranean’, due to its consistent activity over the centuries, and the fact that ancient mariners often used to use it as a navigational aid.

Everyone piled up onto the deck to see Nature’s Fireworks in action. We sailed past its Northern side twice; every ten minutes or so, there would be a red glow appear at its crater, followed by a burst of molten lava being shot into the night sky. Filming or photographing it proved a challenge since you didn’t know exactly when it was going to perform, and auto-focus was barely quick enough to descern anything in the gloom. One bloke who was stood next to me seemed vocally underwhelmed by the experience. I’m quite not sure what he was expecting… Pompeii?….

Both Tracey and I agreed that we found it all rather impressive. Our resident Volcanologist on board gave us a running commentary, and a few interesting facts about Stromboli, and reminded us just how lucky we were to see anything, since there are some nights when it hardly does anything at all.