LIPARI
Lipari is the largest and most populated of the Aeolian Islands with 10,000 inhabitants. The city is really charming with picturesque streets, an attractive harbor and a historic castle-citadel. The island is from volcanic origins, the last eruption on the island took place around 1,400 years ago, and there are currently no signs of volcanic activity. Lipari has a very long and distinguished history certainly inhabited as far back as 5,000 BC. its position has always made it important for maritime trade and valuable resource: black volcanic obsidian, used for knives and sharp implements. The natural harbor is dominated by a convenient rock outcrop, and this was the obvious place for early settlers to build their homes and fortifications. Walking up to the town’s citadel we see excavations revealing many levels of history. Over the centuries Lipari was besieged, conquered and taken over many times, by Carthaginians, Romans, Saracens, Normans, Spanish and finally by a united Italy. The worst attack on record was that by the Turkish corsair Barbarossa, who savaged the island in the sixteenth century, and transported almost the entire population into slavery. Afterwards it was re-settled by the Spanish rulers of Sicily, who built new fortifications on top of the Greek acropolis. The most impressive historic site in Lipari is the castello, the castle. The traditional entrance route is through a defensive gateway, but there is also an additional direct stairway piercing the fortress walls. Lipari’s important archaeological museum is called the Museo Archeologico Regionale Eoliano “Luigi Bernabò Brea” and contains finds from all over the Aeolian Islands. The collections are very fine, from ranks of assembled amphorae salvaged from wrecks, to high-quality Greek vases. The museum is particularly renowned for its hoard of models of Greek theatrical masks, mostly found in tombs on the island. Lipari has two harbors, situated on either side of the castle headland. To the north is Marina Lunga, a functional port where both large ferries and fast hydrofoils dock, the other is  Marina Corta, to the south of the citadel, charming historic harbor, colorful with fishing boats.

VOLCANO
The ancient name of the island sacred to the god Vulcano was “Therassia”, “land of heat”. The Vulcano island is recognized at mythological level, in Greek tradition, as a seat of Hephaestus’ forges, the god of fire and metallurgy. We cannot evade the Latin derivation and the mythological meaning gave by the Romans to god Hephaestus, in fact, the Roman mythological tradition identifies Hephaestus with god Vulcano, from whom the present name of the island derives. The island is a result of the fusion of four volcanoes. The biggest one Vulcano della Fossa is the most active the smallest one is called Vulcanello. Historically the population was mostly constituted by slaves forced to work as miners for the extraction of alum and sulphur. Under the Bourbons’ domination the mining activity has reached its climax, later to be transformed in a real industry. Once ceased the Bourbons’ domination, during the first half of the 19th century, an Englishman Stevenson, who continued the mining activity, and planted the first vineyards in Piano, bought the island. Today it is possible to admire his villa, the Castello, situated near the muds. The Englishman left the island after a dangerous eruption, maybe the last one, in 1888. The few colonies who left used as best they could the recourses of the island but the most representative activity is surely the activity turning around that volcanic cone so near and mighty, but at the same time, so quiet and silent; remember that the volcano has been inactive for more than a century. It remains, however, a land full of life: hissings, the heat of evaporating steams, and the colorful structures of sulphur, are there to remember the majesty of nature which can change the fate of a landscape, and redraw the morphology of a land which, for this reason, remains magic and mythological in each century.

THE COASTLINE
Volcano is the island closest to Sicily it appears by the sea with the front view of the main crater la Grande Fossa. When we turn around the island the coastline presents dark sandy beaches like the one of Gelso quite isolated from the main town with crystal waters. Then we notice coves, grottos and natural swimming pool on the middle of the coastline all characterized by the dark color of lava stone. To reach Lipari we pass the channel that separate this two islands with overlooking on Vulcanello the second crater of Vulcano on the southern side and I Faraglioni of Lipari on the northern. This amazing rocks stands out on the middle of the channel and creates particular shapes and figures on it because of wind erosion, with sometimes carved natural open doors on the rocks to look far away on the horizon.