Southern Italy Road Trip - Day #8 ANOTHER boat trip?!

Day 8 - Aeolian Islands

Another boat trip?! Yes!!! It's hard to resist in this environment! Seeing the coastline from the water is just astonishing. Since we're now staying in Tropea we're very close to Sicily. Above Sicily you have the Aeolian Islands, which we decided to check out.

At the crack of dawn we had to take a boat for a couple of hours until we reached the first stop of the day: Vulcano. Vulcano is the southernmost island of the Aeolian Islands and *drum roll, please! * ... it's a volcano. Shocker!

It's not that big, about 21km2 (8 sq mi). It contains several volcanic centres and reaches a height of 499m (1,637 ft). It has been quiet since 1890. There are sulphur baths that a lot of people like to visit due to their medicinal properties.

Unfortunately for us, we were too busy getting a tetanus shot to enjoy the island.

The night before Robby caused some excitement when he managed to hit his head pretty hard. Since it was bleeding I had to drive him to the hospital. I've never experienced a language barrier in Italy, but of course finding someone who spoke English in the hospital had to be a problem...
Eventually we found an English speaking nurse and Robby got some stitches. Nobody asked him any questions to check if he had a concussion. I had to talk him through the procedure because the medical staff didn't, they just started to work on him right away. "They are shaving your head now, honey." "Ok, here comes the first stitch."
That definitely was an enervating night. And anesthetics? Pff, they don't do that in Italy. That's for wusses.
They tied a piece of rolled up gauze on top of the stitches. Looked like Robby was wearing a little bow, very cute :)
Anyway, in Holland you would get a Tetanus shot right away. Here we had to go and get a shot at the pharmacy and come back to the hospital the next day so someone could administer the shot. This all had to be done within 24h after the accident. We already had the boat tour planned and we didn't wanna cancel it. But hey there are people living there too, there must be a pharmacy. So we decided to take the trip anyway. On the first island we wanted to get it over with and went on a tetanus shot hunt and we found someone to shoot Robby up. That did mean no time for a sulfur bath for us. Although, Robby wasn't allowed to swim for a week anyway ;) We hung out on the volcanic beach for a little bit and then it was onto the next island: Lipari.

Lipari is the largest Aeolian Island. Compared to the outer Aeolians it feels like a big city with its busy little port, but the atmosphere is really relaxed.

For the people who have been reading from the beginning: Do you think the water is getting bluer?

The last stop was Stromboli. It's one of the highest and most active volcanoes in Europe.
It's supposedly named after the so-called strombolian activity and has been active for at least 2000 years, as long as there is written memory of the activity. During the day you see smoke, at night you could see some lava since there are small eruptions every 20 minutes or so. Here you can see the volcanic material sliding into the ocean.

Time to return to Tropea.

It's so beautiful from this point of view!

We arrived back in Tropea around dinner time. After a bite to eat and a couple of drinks it was time to hit the sheets.

Next we'll cross the country on our way to the Eastern shoreline! Are you tagging along for the ride? ;) @best-pomchi-ever