Stromboli - Volcano puffing away

Quick postscript to Agropoli - really, really nice! Our last evening climbed up to the old town, there was a concert by local young singers on, traditional songs, in the Byzantine Castle. Lots of people, atmosphere and we could walk and climb everywhere in the castle. 11pm and everyone was still out in the winding streets and in restaurants including babies and the ancient.

120nm south of Agripoli now with one stop in Capo Pulinaro (superb caves (Azzure, Blood and Monks Caves) and then a 16 hour overnight passage to arrive here in daylight. The Aeolian islands (also called the Lipari islands) are about 35nm from Sicily - there are 7 of them, all volcanic craters, with 2 of them still active - this one and Gran Cratere on Vulcano - by releasing pressure bit by bit continuously. The islands take their name from Aeoleus (god of the winds) who gave Odysseus his bag of contrary winds. A bit like Pandora's box, the crew mistakenly opened the bag and let all hell loose!

The area is therefore also known as the Mediterranean "Bermuda Triangle". This triangle is formed between Ustica off coast of Sicily, the Strait of Messina and the islands themselves across to mainland Italy. And apparently there is an unusual amount of bad weather and strong gales experienced here. So far we have dead calms.

Stromboli has been called the oldest lighthouse in the world (on account of its steady and persistent fiery lava flow) and is said to have guided Odysseus to the two perils of Scylla and Charybdis, as it still does today and to Messina Strait. We circumnavigated the island by day and were rewarded with the crater spewing out great rocks that tumbled down the slope and sploshed into the sea (there is a restricted safety zone that boats may not enter). Then as recommended we took the boat round to the NW side at dusk to experience the "sciara del fuoco" or flow of fire where lava flows down the NW slopes to the sea. Some of it flowed, but the remarkable sight was of the flames erupting straight up out of the crater. Sadly, combination of total darkness and a bobbing boat does not make for good pictures! We tried. Off to Lipari today, largest of the islands and hope to climb that one.

Something magical about following these ancient routes, and privileged to be able to do so in a way not available to land-locked folk.

ps Sending from Vulcano but that's another story.