Italy’s Aeolian Islands offer simple beauty and pleasures
BY GIOVANNA DELL’ORTO July 16, 2011 10:08PM
The port of Alicudi, Aeolian Islands, Italy. Located off the northeastern shore of Sicily, vacationers, including celebrities, flock to the islands in the summer season.
IF YOU GO
AEOLIAN ISLANDS, ITALY: The best season to go is May to October; most establishments close in winter. You can fly into Naples or Palermo and take ferries from their ports, or drive to the closest port at Milazzo, where many daily crossings to Salina originate, taking less than two hours. Companies include Siremar, tirrenia.it/it/siremar, and Ustica Lines, usticalines.it. Overnight ferry service from Naples is available, or take the more expensive daytime hydrofoil, about five hours.
ACCOMMODATIONS AND DINING: Azienda Agrituristica “Al Cappero” has simple, stunningly located mini-apartments in Pollara and a superb restaurant featuring caper dishes and fresh fish, alcappero.it.
BOATING: Antonello Randazzo leads small-group boat tours from Malfa to all islands, including a dinner excursion to Stromboli, stelladisalina.it. He also rents mini-apartments on Salina. Massimo Taranto, at Nautica Non Solo Mare in Malfa’s port, rents easy-to-use dinghies and speedboats, 011-39-090-984-4009.
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Updated: October 29, 2011 12:35AM
SALINA ISLAND, Italy — As I watch the sun set from my terrace on the west coast of Salina, one of Italy’s Aeolian Islands, I marvel again that the stone headrest I am lying against is so inexplicably comfortable.
Its effect is like so much else on this harsh volcanic island, located in the clearest Mediterranean waters: Salina’s very starkness soothingly lulls you into contemplating its simple beauty.
Vacationers — including celebs like Leonardo DiCaprio, Naomi Campbell and even the designer duo Dolce and Gabbana — flock to the islands in this archipelago off the northeastern shore of Sicily, named after the Greek god of wind. Salina also has its share of famous visitors, especially since scenes from the Oscar-winning “Il Postino” were filmed on one of its beaches, and you could spend an afternoon here cafe-hopping in one of its ports, or splurge on a stay at a smattering of luxury hotels. But there are plenty of places to escape the crowds.
I spent five days last summer at a caper farm in Pollara, a hamlet of less than 100 people in the half-sunken crater of a tall volcano that turns pink at dusk and pitch-black at night, unmarred by streetlights. It made perfect sense here to pass an evening listening to a gecko’s jaws methodically clamping on its moth snacks, in utter stillness.
Farm owner Giuseppe Famularo took me around the caper fields he inherited when he was 12 from his father, one of the few islanders who didn’t emigrate to the Americas or Australia after a bug destroyed the crops.
Each minuscule caper must be picked by hand every eight days, avoiding the painful thorn that grows right underneath it, for a total of nearly 9,000 pounds each season. The capers then ferment under sea salt for at least two months before becoming the staple of the island’s cuisine and used in Famularo’s unique “pesto di capperi di Salina.”
“This is work of the soil, and you need to love it,” said Anna Alizzo, who started picking capers on Salina as a child and whose personal record is 77 pounds in one back-breaking morning.
The only other major crop on the island is Malvasia grapes, which produce the eponymous dessert wine whose powerful, honeyed taste reflects its origin: Hand-picked from volcanic slopes, the grapes are sun-dried over reed gratings for nearly a month, said Gaetano Marchetta.
“It is our choice to produce it with very traditional methods,” even though that means only getting some 660 gallons a year, Marchetta said. He inherited the winery, Azienda Agricola Marchetta, in the village of Malfa four miles from Pollara, from his uncle, who tended it for 50 years.
The most ancient tradition of Salina is fishing, especially tuna and swordfish, so I trusted a fisherman born and raised in Malfa, Antonello “Il Pescatore” Randazzo, to take me on day trips to three other islands with a dozen other vacationers.
One day, we traveled west about an hour to Filicudi and tiny Alicudi, the wildest and least developed Aeolian islands.
Cubic white houses, flat-roofed to gather rainwater and connected via steep stairways, plus a few stone walls dating from 1,800 B.C., dot the islands. If you stay in Alicudi, your valet is going to be Otto or one of his colleagues — sturdy donkeys that enjoy midday siestas in the shade among the prickly pears and purple rocks.
Another day, we headed east to Stromboli, an active volcano reliably spewing incandescent rocks every 10 minutes or so that looks perfectly conical, as if a child had drawn it.
On the boat, Antonello served his signature pasta with fresh-caught tuna, tomatoes and, of course, capers. As the moon rose and the breeze carried the scent of sun-baked wild fennel out to sea, we spent a rapturous hour floating in front of Sciara del Fuoco, the slope where lava and black rocks can be seen bursting out of Stromboli and falling back to the sea. Sailing back, we passed just north of Panarea, the Aeolians’ celebrity-packed party island.
On both days, I lost count of how many times I jumped off the boat into water so clear that swimming felt like flying, the sun streaking the sea floor green, cobalt and turquoise.
Antonello and I chatted about the fishermen’s life. It’s a hard life, disdained by the younger generation, but once it’s in your blood, he said, you can never consider leaving the island. I asked why. The gruff fisherman paused.
“It’s paradise,” he finally said, shrugging. “You wake up, you see the sun rise, you see it set. You feel the wind, the sea. Paradise.”
AP
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