Sicily - Eolie Islands

We had breakfast on the deck with this view this morning. Another beautiful day in Italy. We decided to make our way to Milazzo then do a day trip to the Eolie Islands

Parking in Milazzo was a nightmare, and our time was short to get tickets to the boat, so Anne dropped me off and then went and parked the car. I was told, no - boats were full. I waited to Anne then went into the Tarnav office a second time and asked if there were any cancellations. She then asked how many was in our party, and when I said only 2, then she sold me a ticket on the boat.

The view leaving Milazzo...

My name is now.. 'Currency'!

The first of the two islands we stopped at was Panarea. White houses dotted the landscape. The water is crystal clear blue..

In the distance the island of Stromboli has a small eruption

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A small fishing boat greets us as we walk down to the jetty to the shore...

We decided to walk to the beach - it was quite a long way, mostly uphill... A fishing net is draped over a wall..

The island reminds me a lot of Santorini - with so much blue and white...

Lots of Bourgainvillea and oliver trees... 

And a Cathedral...

The walk opens up to this vista, and the beach is on the otherside of the cliff...

We stopped and had a wine on this terrace..

After our wine, I caught a taxi back to the boat while Anne walked. This time we got a seat upstairs by the open canopy so I was able to take photos directly from my seat.

\Our next (and final) island was Stromboli. An active volcano.

\

The beach was a mix of scoria and pumice from previous eruptions, and fine black sand...

We walked up to the plaza and cathedral, then walked back down to the beach. Unfortunately the sun had gone from the beach so it wasn't nice to sit. So instead we went to a hotel bar for one beer so we could use their wifi to book our accommodation for tonight!

Lots of fishing boats lined up on this beach...

And we watched the sunset...

After our beer, we got back onto the boat where dinner was serviced, then we headed out around the otherside of Stromboli to watch some eruptions. Unfortunately, the eruptions were tiny so we got no lava pouring down the cliff face into the sea, or anything dramatic. But we did get some fresh sea air, and a nice cruise back to Milazzo.\'

Once back in Milazzo, we headed to the car... and couldn't find it. After some help from a nice restaurant we found it a further 100metres down the road! We then drove 15 minutes to our accommodation to find the host wasn't there, spoke no English, said he would meet us, and never came! It was a dark, isolated, dingy area, so we quickly went online and booked another place. We asked Airbnb for help and they cancelled our booking, gave us a refund and a travel voucher.  Way to go Airbnb!