We keep hinting that we're going to climb up a volcano to see lava explosions, and you're going to have to wait yet another day for those pictures. The tour group was full this morning, so we made plans to visit the Stromboli volcano tomorrow, and went to the island of Salina instead.
Salina is the only aeolian island with fresh water springs, so it is a little greener than the other islands. It is an island famous for growing capers and grapes for the local sweet Malvasia wine and gets its name from the saltworks located there. We took a hydrofoil over to the island and walked around the port town of Santa Marina Salina to get some snacks for the day. There are very few people around and a lot of good photos to take. Since there isn't much else to do in town, we took a bus to the opposite side of the island.
We went to a town called Pollara (aka, 10 houses), where there is a beach that was used as the setting for much of the film, "Il Postino". We had to hike down several steps off of the main road and all of a sudden we were at the bottom of a shear cliff where there was a swimming area. It was reminiscent of Capri, but...those damn jellyfish! There were so many jellyfish you couldn't even count them. During the day there were several people who visited the beach and we all spent the day pointing out the jellyfish. A few brave (or stupid) people went for a swim, and after three hours I had to at least go in and dunk my head. It was beautiful and relaxing from the shore, but would have been 100 times better if we could have actually enjoyed the water.We walked back to the bus stop and took the bus to the south end of the island, to another town called Lingua, where the saltworks are located. The views of Lipari were great and we could see the road we walked down yesterday. The landscape of the roads on Salina were also amazing to see - it looked like they just sawed through huge walls of sandstone to create the space for the roads. We decided to walk back to Santa Marina Salina to get a better view of the landscape, and then took a boat back to Lipari for dinner.
Another huge portion of gelato for dessert and back home to prepare for our three-hour volcano climb tomorrow!
Gelato Gusti per il Giorno:
Mike - Cioccolato e Pistacchio (I think you know what these are by now...)
Aviva - Tiramisu e Caffe di Nonno (tiramisu and coffee)
Also: In response to some of the comments on the blog:
1. I am very impressed with how closely people are looking at our photos. I can't believe two of you noticed the Coco Pops!
2. Fruit Vendors: I also thought that you weren't supposed to touch the fruit/veggies here. However, I am pretty sure that I've seen other people doing it, and yesterday I specifically asked the guy if I could take my own fruit, and he said yes. I think my new strategy might be that I have Mike be my decoy - I'll have him start picking out some fruit at the same time I do in order to distract the vendor so I can shop in peace.
3. I have to say that as soon as I complained that people weren't talking to me in Italian, people here started talking to me in Italian. Especially since we've been in Sicily, pretty much everyone speaks only in Italian. I find that it is getting easier to understand what people are saying to me, but I still have to think about what I am saying. The hardest part: understanding numbers. You'd think it would be pretty simple, but when people tell me how much things cost or when a bus is going to come, I probably look like a deer in headlights. I had to try some bargaining today and it was interesting...
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