We went out at seven and the light was already going. The boat was small and open and there were nine of us on it, which I had not expected. I think I had imagined something more solitary. It is…
Archives for August 2026
The Best Time to Visit the Aeolian Islands
The Aeolians have a narrower usable season than most of Italy, and the reason is not temperature. It is boats. These islands depend entirely on a ferry network, and that network expands and contracts with the year. In August there…
Filicudi and Alicudi: The Islands Almost Nobody Visits
At the western end of the archipelago there are two more islands, and most visitors never see either. They are the oldest of the seven and the furthest out, the boats are thinner, and there is very little to do…
The Best Beaches in the Aeolian Islands
The first thing to say, because it is the thing people are not expecting: there are almost no golden sand beaches in the Aeolian Islands. These are volcanoes. What you get instead is black sand, grey shingle, pale pumice gravel…
Vulcano: The Crater, the Mud Baths and the Warm Sea
Vulcano is the closest island to Sicily, the easiest to reach, and the one most people see first, which is why it is also the one most often visited on bad information. Two things need saying immediately, because both change…
Panarea: The Expensive One, and Whether It Is Worth It
Panarea is the smallest inhabited island in the archipelago and by a wide margin the most expensive, and those two facts are related. It is three and a half square kilometres. There is no room for a road network, so…
Stromboli and the Volcano Climb: What You Can Actually Do
Before anything else, because a lot of people arrive having booked on information that is six years out of date: you cannot climb to the summit of Stromboli. Access to the summit area has been prohibited since the paroxysmal eruptions…
Salina: Capers, Malvasia and the Green Island
Salina is the one people wish they had booked. It is the second largest of the Aeolians and the only one that is properly green, and the reason is water. Salina has springs, which none of its neighbours really do,…
Lipari: The Practical Heart of the Aeolians
Lipari gets written about as the boring one, and that is unfair and also useful. It is the largest of the seven, it has the most people, the most beds and the most boats, and because of that it reads…
How to Get to the Aeolian Islands
There is no airport on any of the seven islands, and there never will be, because there is nowhere flat enough to put one. So getting here is a flight, a transfer and a boat, in that order, and the…
Aeolian Islands Ferries and Island Hopping
Island hopping is the phrase everyone uses about the Aeolians and it gives entirely the wrong picture. It suggests a loop: seven islands in a ring, a boat from each to the next, working your way round. That is not…
Which Aeolian Island Should You Stay On
This is the only decision that really matters, and most people make it from a photograph. The seven Aeolian islands are genuinely different from one another in ways that photographs do not show: how many beds there are, how often…
