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Sicily · 2016

Day 8 - Lipari

View inside a cozy room with open French doors, a hanging pendant lamp, and a framed still-life painting of fruit on the wall.
A straight highway flanked by green trees leads toward a small town clustered on a hill in the distance under a clear blue sky. A road curves past guardrails toward a tunnel sign reading Pietra Perciata, with a town on a rocky hill in the background. Looking across a metal guardrail toward a distant coastal town and the sea horizon under a bright blue sky, seen from a moving car. Sailboats rest on calm blue water in a harbor, with a wooden pier, a covered dock, and faint mountains along the horizon. A petrochemical refinery stands by the coast with tall chimneys, cooling towers, and tanks, backed by hazy mountains and steam. Several white and blue fishing boats and a tugboat are moored together in a harbor, with hazy mountains rising behind them. Tall red-and-white striped chimneys rise over an industrial harbor with storage tanks and a ship docked at the pier, mountains behind. Palm trees and ornate street lamps line a town promenade beside a historic brick building, with bunting strung between the trees. A grey pigeon with a green iridescent neck and red feet stands on sunlit stone paving in a close-up shot. A white ferry marked Laurana and Siremar is moored in a harbor, with an industrial refinery and mountains visible across the water. Red and orange workboats float at a harbor quay in front of a white building labeled Compagnia Portuale, with a palm tree and houses behind. White and yellow houses are scattered over a green, tree-covered hillside, forming a small village in the Sicilian landscape. White Mediterranean buildings with terracotta roofs stand behind a grey pebble beach with a few small boats, backed by a green hillside with greenhouses. A small concrete pier stretches into dark blue water before white terracotta-roofed houses, with boats pulled onto the gravel beach and a green hillside behind. A white church facade inscribed Maria Stella del Mare stands on the waterfront, with fishing boats on the beach and yachts on the hillside behind. White and orange houses cling to a steep, rocky green hillside, with terraced gardens and dense vegetation covering the slope. A broad, forested mountain rises under a clear blue sky, with a few white houses and terraced slopes dotted along its green hillside. A steep, rugged hillside is covered in dense green scrub and vegetation, with a few small white buildings scattered across the slope. White and ochre villas stand among trees and lush green vegetation on a hillside, some on terraced plots with stone retaining walls. A long, low, partly ruined building sits on a green hillside among scrub, trees and a few palm trees. An orange-terracotta building and a few small structures sit on a ridge against a blue sky with clouds, on a slope with sparse green vegetation. White and pastel houses line a waterfront with a small stone jetty reaching into the sea, a palm tree and a couple of people. A large white villa with terraces sits on a green hillside among trees, seen through a light haze under a blue sky. White villas are set on terraces among dense trees on a green hillside, under a blue sky with a gentle haze. A narrow old-town street runs beneath a medieval fortress wall with a dome-topped tower, flanked by ornate balconies, palm trees and a cast-iron lamp post. A narrow cobbled pedestrian street in a Sicilian town, lined with old houses, wrought-iron balconies, hanging laundry and a lantern. A cobbled lane dropping through a Sicilian town, with houses, balconies, potted plants, a parked white SUV and lush greenery. An elevated view over a Sicilian town, with buildings and houses scattered across a green hillside below a clear blue sky. A narrow alley in Sicily with walls painted bright pink and blue, potted plants, a lantern and a small balcony above. A striped tabby cat stands on a rough cobblestone pavement, looking directly at the camera with bright eyes. Low ancient stone walls and ruined foundations at an archaeological site in Sicily, beside a white building and a green railing. Rough ancient wall remains of an archaeological excavation, stacked dry stone and low walls scattered with plants. A close view of a ruined wall built of rough blocks, with a gap or opening and dry ground around it. Through a gap between two houses, a black iron fence and trees frame a view of the blue Mediterranean sea in Sicily. A cobbled plaza in Sicily with a large historic stone building, olive trees, potted plants, a lamp post and a black cat. The blue sea is seen through dark eucalyptus trunks and an ornate iron railing, with a hazy coastline in the distance in Sicily. An open archaeology area in Sicily with low ancient stone walls, dry grass, an olive tree, a white wall and a green railing. An excavated archaeological area in Sicily with ancient stone walls and foundations, grassy patches and a white building in the background. Information board of the Regional Archaeological Museum Luigi Bernabo Brea showing a colour-coded excavation site plan and a timeline of prehistoric eras. Partial stone foundations and low walls of an ancient settlement uncovered during excavations, with grass growing between the weathered stones. View from a height over a hillside village of white houses scattered among green slopes, with ruined stone walls in the foreground. A black cat walks down a cobbled street in a Sicilian village, with historic buildings, potted plants and stone steps on both sides. A black cat with bright yellow eyes sits on rough cobblestone pavement beside a textured plaster wall in low sunlight. Bright turquoise sea washing over large submerged rocks along the coast, sunlight lighting up the clear shallow water. Looking down through clear turquoise water at rounded stones and rock formations on the shallow seabed near the shore. Clear turquoise water revealing big rock formations and stones near the shoreline, viewed from a height with sunlight. A wide seascape looking out over calm blue sea towards a hazy mountainous island on the horizon, with a green headland on the right. A green, partly volcanic hillside rises behind a tiny harbour with moored boats and white buildings, opposite the blue sea. A green headland slopes into the deep blue sea on the left, with an open horizon of water and sky on the right. A dark rugged headland juts into the sea on the right, with a hazy island far on the horizon under a cloud-streaked sky. An ornate baroque church facade with a statue niche and central window is seen up a flight of stone steps between two shaded buildings. A narrow old Sicilian alley with weathered yellow walls, a wooden door at the top of worn stone steps, drainpipes and a small barred window. Tall old buildings with wrought-iron balconies line a narrow cobbled street, a lamp hangs on a wire overhead and a hill is visible beyond. A weathered alley in a Sicilian town with green shuttered windows, balconies, potted plants, and small shopfronts on both sides. A close-up of a weathered stone building facade with a balcony, faded green shutters, an iron railing, and ornate stone corbels. A close-up of an aged stone facade with a balcony framed by weathered green shutters, an iron railing, and decorative stone brackets. A paved street in a Sicilian town with a white SUV, yellow and pink buildings, green awnings, a navigation sign, and a wine restaurant sign. A narrow street of pastel-colored old houses with balconies and green shutters slopes downhill, revealing the blue sea in the distance. A downhill street of pastel houses with shuttered balconies opens onto a view of the sea, with a rock headland in the distance. A paved seaside promenade with an ornate cast-iron lamp post, a stone statue monument, moored boats, parked cars, and people by the sea. A town square with a church rising behind a broad staircase and palm trees, flanked by old buildings and an outdoor cafe seating area. A waterfront with a stone statue on a tall pedestal, an ornate lamp post, parked cars, people, and the sea beyond steep cliffs. A coastal road with parked cars and palm trees in stone planters, an ornate lamp post, calm turquoise water, and green hills behind. A harbor scene with small boats moored in calm water, a person seated on the quay, and a rocky cliff topped with buildings. Sicilian seaside village with houses built into a rocky cliff, a stone fortress wall on top, and an ornate street lamp in the foreground. A wooden pier extends into the sea with a ferry docked, a paved waterfront promenade, and a green headland rising across the bay. Cars line the waterfront promenade beside a bay, with palm trees, typical white buildings, and a green hillside dotted with houses behind. A tall street lamp in the foreground of a calm bay, with green hills covered in houses across the water. A street in a Sicilian town lined with white multi-storey buildings with balconies and shops, parked cars, and a large green mountain rising behind. A white ferry sails on the horizon of a calm open sea while a seagull flies overhead and a small buoy floats in the foreground. Two white ferries are moored at a wooden harbor pier, with people walking along the dock and an orange lifeboat on the larger vessel. A dark pebbly beach fills the foreground, with a pier and ferry set before a town on a rocky headland across the bay. A seafront promenade with palm trees and parked cars beside a beach and a town climbing a hill. A person stands on a pebbly beach beside a small pier with a concrete ramp, boats, and houses climbing the hillside across the bay. Houses are stacked up a hillside in a Sicilian town, crowned by a church with a bell tower and dome, beside a stone fortress wall. White ferries and the cargo ship Green Lipari are moored alongside a wooden pier with railings, against a blue sky over the sea. A church with a tall stone bell tower and an ornate baroque facade topped by a cross rises above the rooftops of a Sicilian town. A narrow pedestrian street lined with weathered multi-storey buildings, balconies, wall-mounted street lamps and overhead wires, with houses climbing a sunny hillside in the background. A dense cluster of whitewashed Mediterranean houses with terraced flat roofs and satellite dishes, overlooked by a massive grey stone fortress wall and ramparts on a hilltop. A town of close-packed white and weathered houses surrounded by high stone defensive walls, with a large domed church standing on the cliff above. A small white fishing boat with a red cabin drifting on calm deep-blue water, with a rocky green headland appearing on the left horizon. A row of moored white sailboats with tall masts alongside a pier, with a yellow waterfront building on a green, terraced hillside rising behind the harbor. White Mediterranean houses with red-tiled roofs clustered on a hillside above a massive stone sea wall, with bougainvillea and green vegetation among the buildings. A modern white villa with flat roofs standing on a ridge of dry scrubland and scattered trees, under a clear blue sky, with stone terrace walls visible below. A steep hillside dotted with many white villas featuring red-tiled roofs, surrounded by green trees, cypresses and Mediterranean scrub on terraced land. A white villa on a steep cactus-covered hillside, viewed past the green fronds of a large palm tree in the foreground, with antennae on a rooftop below. A rocky, scrub-covered hillside dotted with small white houses, viewed over a modern road bridge railing in the foreground, with cacti covering the slope. Many white Mediterranean houses packed onto a steep terraced hillside with stone retaining walls, satellite dishes and gardens, beneath a wooded mountain top. A stone harbor waterfront with tall palm trees, ornate street lamps and blue-and-white buildings, with small white and blue boats pulled up onto the quay below. White villas standing along the crest of a rocky, scrub-covered hillside under a clear blue sky, with green vegetation and trees at the summit. Houses built on a rocky hillside with stone retaining walls and scrubby green vegetation under a clear blue sky in Sicily White village houses scattered across a steep green mountainside covered in Mediterranean shrubs and trees in Sicily A palm tree stands on a street in a harbor town near a ferry ticket and tour office, with white buildings, shutters and people Blue and white Liberty Lines catamaran ferry with a yellow stripe sailing on the sea, a seagull flying overhead and a wooden pier at right A catamaran ferry sailing away across the open sea, seen from behind at a distance with a hazy sky, leaving a dark exhaust plume A small ferry visible on the far horizon of a wide, gentle blue ocean beneath a mostly clear hazy sky
Journal Notes

General

The eighth day crosses the water to the Aeolian Islands, and most of the album belongs to Lipari. Lipari is the largest of the seven islands of the archipelago, lying in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the northern coast of Sicily, and it is also a municipality that includes six of them: Lipari itself together with Vulcano, Panarea, Stromboli, Filicudi and Alicudi. The islands belong administratively to the Metropolitan City of Messina, and Lipari has 12,794 permanent residents, most of them in the town that climbs the slope from the harbour to the castle above it.

The archipelago is volcanic, and its shape is the reason for everything else about it. The Aeolian Islands cover 114.7 square kilometres in total and had a permanent population of 14,224 at the 2011 census, with an official estimate of 15,419 as of 1 January 2019; two of the islands, Stromboli and Vulcano, are active volcanoes and the rest are the eroded remains of older ones. Because the islands stand in deep water and are built of hard volcanic rock, the coasts are steep, the beaches are pebbles or boulders rather than sand, and the sea around them is clear and very blue.

The approach is part of the day. The crossing from the Sicilian mainland is made by ferry and by catamaran from the port of Milazzo, past an industrial harbour with refinery chimneys and storage tanks, and the islands appear one after another on the horizon during the passage; in the harbour of Lipari the boats are moored along the quay in front of the town, with the castle on its rock above them. The harbour is the centre of island life, because everything that arrives here arrives by sea.

Once ashore the town is small enough to walk in an hour and varied enough to occupy a day. The main street runs from the port between restaurants and shops, the lanes behind it climb towards the fortifications on the acropolis, and the houses are whitewashed with flat or gently pitched roofs, packed together against the slope. In winter the island is quiet, the summer boats are gone, and the town belongs to the people who live there and to the archaeological work that has been going on here for more than a century.

Two of the islands in the group are still active. Stromboli has erupted almost continuously for centuries, with small explosions that are visible from the sea at night, which is why it is known as the lighthouse of the Mediterranean, and Vulcano, immediately south of Lipari, erupted last in 1888 and 1890 and still releases gas from its fumaroles; the remaining islands are the eroded remains of older centres. Sailing between them, the difference between live and dormant ground is visible in the shape of the coastline.

History

The Aeolian Islands have been settled for an unusually long time, and the reason was trade. In the early Bronze Age, at the end of the third millennium BCE, new settlers of Aeolian origin came from Mycenaean Greece, giving their name to the islands; they had already settled at Metapontum in Italy and used the islands as outposts for controlling the trading routes through the Strait of Messina. Successive domestic buildings have been excavated on the acropolis of Lipari dating from the eighteenth century BCE down to the Roman period, which makes the site one of the deepest stratigraphic sequences in the Mediterranean.

In the Bronze Age the archipelago prospered through maritime commerce in an area that extended from Mycenae to the British Isles, from where tin was imported, and the islands were a station on that route. The obsidian of Lipari, a volcanic glass that fractures into sharp edges, was one of the earliest traded materials in the region and has been found far from the islands; the trade in it predates the metals that later replaced it. Later, between about 300 BCE and 250 CE, the islanders were allies of the Carthaginians against Rome, and they shared the fate of the losing side.

The medieval and early modern history of Lipari is a history of raids. The island was attacked repeatedly by pirates and fleets from the mainland and from North Africa, and in 1544 the Ottoman admiral Hayreddin Barbarossa ransacked Lipari and enslaved the entire population. Charles V then had his Spanish subjects repopulate the island and build the massive city walls on top of the walls of the ancient Greek acropolis in 1556, which is why the castle of Lipari has the appearance of a sixteenth century fortress standing on a Greek and Roman site. The population of today is descended in part from the settlers of that period.

Modern Lipari has been shaped by archaeology and by tourism. The excavations on the acropolis and in the necropolis outside the walls produced the material that fills the Regional Archaeological Museum Luigi Bernabò Brea, named after the archaeologist who directed the work on the island and made it one of the best documented prehistoric sequences in Italy. Since the twentieth century the islands have also been a summer destination, reached by ferry and hydrofoil from Milazzo and Naples, and in 2013 the mayor of Lipari issued an ordinance banning swimming costumes in the town centre, punishable with a fine, a decision that caused a certain amount of discussion and illustrated the pressures of a small island economy built on visitors.

The Bronze Age prosperity of the islands was built on a single material. Obsidian, the volcanic glass found on Lipari, fractures into edges sharper than steel, and the manufacture of obsidian bladelets on the island had reached a high level of sophistication by the late Neolithic; the blades were traded as far as Sicily, the southern Po valley and Croatia, and they were used for cutting umbilical cords and in ritual. Long before the Mycenaean traders arrived, this speck of land was already a supplier to the wider Mediterranean.

Geology

The Aeolian Islands are the product of a volcanic arc, formed where the African plate descends beneath the Eurasian plate in the Tyrrhenian Sea. The arc includes active, dormant and extinct centres, and the islands are the parts of those volcanoes that stand above the water: some are complete cones, some are fragments of cones that have been partly destroyed by explosion or collapse, and some are the eroded cores of much older edifices. Because each island has its own history and age, the archipelago is a natural laboratory for the study of how volcanic islands are built and taken apart.

Two of the islands are still active. Stromboli has erupted almost continuously for centuries, with small explosions visible from the sea at night, and Vulcano, immediately south of Lipari, has been the source of the name and the concept of the volcanic crater; its last major eruption was in the late nineteenth century, and its fumaroles are still active. The two of them, together with the older islands, form a chain that runs from west to east across the sea, and the passage between them is the route that the ferries take.

The rock of the islands explains the archaeology. Lipari is made largely of rhyolitic lava and pumice, and the island’s obsidian, a natural volcanic glass formed when lava cools too quickly to crystallise, breaks with a sharp edge that made it the ideal material for blades and tools before metals were available. Pumice, the light froth of solidified lava, was quarried here for centuries and is still exported for use as an abrasive; the whitish cliffs of some parts of the island are made of it. The same materials make the soil thin in places and extremely fertile in others.

The coasts are the result of this structure. Lava entering the sea and hard rock resisting the waves produce steep shores, sea cliffs and stacks; where the material is softer or has been eroded by quarrying, there are coves with pebble beaches such as the one at the town of Lipari, with a small concrete pier reaching into dark blue water. The water is clear because there is very little sediment, and it is deep close in because the islands rise from deep water rather than from a shallow shelf, which is why the colour changes from turquoise over rocks to almost black over the drop.

The islands rise from deep water rather than from a shelf, and the difference shows in the colour of the sea. Close to shore the water is turquoise over rock and pale stone, and within a short distance it turns dark blue and then almost black where the bottom drops away; there is very little sediment because there are no large rivers, so the water stays clear. The harbour of Lipari and the coves of the smaller islands are formed where softer material or old quarries interrupt the hard volcanic shores.

Things to See

The castle and the museum are the first reason to come. The sixteenth century walls built by order of Charles V stand on the ancient Greek acropolis, and inside them are the cathedral, the excavations and the Regional Archaeological Museum Luigi Bernabò Brea. The museum’s display of the island’s prehistoric sequence, from obsidian tools and Bronze Age pottery to the Greek and Roman layers, is the clearest explanation available of why these small islands mattered so much; the excavated areas beside it show low stone walls and foundations of successive settlements, with an information board explaining the sections.

The town itself is the second subject. Narrow old streets run beneath the fortress wall towards a dome topped tower, cobbled lanes drop between houses with balconies, potted plants and washing, and one alley is painted in bright pink and blue with a lantern hanging above it. Cats sit on the cobblestones in the sun, and the ordinary detail of island life, doors, shutters, plants on steps, is as much a part of the visit as the monuments.

The water and the coast are the third part of the day. Turquoise sea washes over large submerged rocks in the sunlight, rounded stones and rock formations are visible through clear water in the shallows, and from the shore the view runs out over calm blue sea towards a hazy mountainous island on the horizon. A green and partly volcanic hillside rises behind a tiny harbour with moored boats and white buildings, a green headland slopes into deep water, and a dark rugged headland juts into the sea with another island far away; the whole archipelago can be read from a single viewpoint.

The ferry trip home is the last part of the album. Blue and white catamarans of the local line sail between the islands, a catamaran moves away across open water, and a small ferry shows on the far horizon of a wide, gentle blue sea under a clear sky; in the harbour of the mainland, workboats, tugs and sailboats lie along the quays in front of the buildings, and a weathered fishing boat propped up on land is painted with murals. Travelling between the islands by sea is the only way to see them as what they are, a chain of volcanoes standing in deep water, and the crossings are as much part of the experience as the islands themselves.

The crossing is part of the visit rather than a means to it. The ferries and catamarans run from the mainland past the industrial harbour of Milazzo and then from island to island, and the passengers who use them are a mixture of residents, workers and visitors; cars, crates and building materials travel on the same boats. From the deck the shape of each volcano can be read in succession, and the last view of the islands, small and dark on the horizon, is the one that stays.

References

  1. Frey, D. & others (1978). Deepwater archaeology: the Capistello wreck excavation, Lipari, Aeolian Islands. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 7, 279-300. doi.org/10.1111/j.1095-9270.1978.tb01079.x
  2. Martinelli, M. C. & others (2019). Lipari (Aeolian Islands) obsidian in the Late Neolithic: artifacts, supply and function. Open Archaeology 5, 46-64. doi.org/10.1515/opar-2019-0005
  3. Martinelli, M. C. & others (2020). Prehistorical obsidian sources in the island of Lipari (Aeolian Islands). Open Archaeology 6, 363-378. doi.org/10.1515/opar-2020-0119
  4. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Aeolian Islands. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolian_Islands
  5. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Alicudi. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alicudi
  6. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Bronze Age. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Age
  7. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_V,_Holy_Roman_Emperor
  8. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Filicudi. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filicudi
  9. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Hayreddin Barbarossa. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayreddin_Barbarossa
  10. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Lipari. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipari
  11. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Mycenaean Greece. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycenaean_Greece
  12. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Neolithic. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic
  13. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Obsidian. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsidian
  14. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Panarea. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panarea
  15. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Stromboli. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stromboli
  16. Wikipedia contributors (2026). UNESCO. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNESCO
  17. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Vulcano. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcano