Where We Come From: Eolian Islands, Italy

The first two weeks of October were spent eating - swimming - eating - scaling volcanoes - eating and researching and presenting my family's history on the seven tiny Eolian islands in Southern Italy with Mum. I'm only going to say this once quickly as to make it bearable, but, I come from a nicer place than you. The islands that my Nonna and Nonno migrated from are, without a doubt, the most beautiful place I've seen in all of Europe. The end. The rest of this extra loooong blog only acts as evidence to back up this point.

The island of Filicudi (where my grandmother lived).

When we first docked at our home base on the island Salina the weather was a bit poopy, but it just made the place stunningly dramatic. All together there were 20 something of us Aussies who regrouped on the islands to study/celebrate/ingest our collective heritage. 

Lipari port

The views from our private terrace in Santa Marina. Put that in your pipe and smoke it (and you still probably won't get as much cloud as these mountains got).

The next day is cleared up and revealed heaven.

On the walk from Santa Marina to Linga.

Pane Cunzato featuring all the regular Aeolian fittings: anchovies, olives, oil and capers. 

Not recommended as first date food, I had schtinky breath for about a week after this bad boy.

Casual views

Hanging out with the mama bear. 

It was so amazing having her along, not only for the tanning but also to help with my research into our family's history and general emotion and financial support. She's a good Mum. Her italian skills were handy when it came to interacting with the locals (the only time I didn't bring her along I accidentally ended up buying a 60 dollar snorkel mask...but that's another story).

Some of the girls from trip. Just being glamourous on a boat.

My lovely adoptive family: Janet, Yasmin and Zahra who played with me patiently for the first week.

Dem caves.

Our local cooking lessons (they'll make a housewife of me yet). Here we're making sfinci, which I'll poorly label Sicilian doughnut ball thingys. Aunty Jo, if you're reading this, don't worry, yours are still much better.

You're looking a the main port on the main island, Lipiri. This is about as industrial as the islands get. This is also where my Nonno is from.

Fichi d' india (prickly pears)

On our first day free from the 'Heritage Study program' schedule (which was full of as many free lunches as cultural excursions and classes) Mum and I went to Filicudi which is where my Nonna was born.

Sat. Nav. Nancy finding the location of our historical 'family home'...

...and me standing on its abandoned porch. It was a really bizarre feeling being there.

but then I spotted these guys and the knot in my stomach loosened a little. At least someone is living there in some capacity.

The walk from Nonna's house in Rocca de Ciauli down to the port.

My sentiments exactly.

The island graveyard with the million dollar view, where I found the graves of my great, great grandparent and hundreds of distant cousins.

The Port.

The island's beautiful, placid- and I think communal- dog Blu.

Mum called up an old friend Pino who proceeded to yell at us for not calling him earlier and then drove us around the entire island. We asked him about the archeological digs that are going on on the Easern side of the island. He replied that they were digging up "Raabish"and that it was a stupid idea. Turns out he lived with a team of archeologists who let us go down with them to the dig where they were excavating a 4000 year old settlement. Step aside Roman Forum!

Them Ancients had a nice view.

After that Pino took us to visit his friend. His friend is German. His friend also lives in a cave. His friend has lived in said cave for over 40 years. I was intrigued enough to go along...

On the way to visit the hermit's cave. 

The mixture of fear and excitement is all too obvious in Mum's eyes.

In an ironic twist, the hermit wasn't home, but we got a tour of his grounds anyway. He called us the following night from a friend's mobile phone to apologise for not being home and having us for dinner. You know, just the usual.

During the second week of the program we had the option to climb up an active volcano on the creatively named island 'Vulcano'. We where about halfway up before Emmanuel our guide told us it was two years overdue for an eruption. Cheers, Emmanuel.

I forgave him because the view was spectacular (and we had matching backpacks on) and because the sulphur stink was sooo strong up there that I couldn't really focus on more than rancid egg salad and putting one foot in-front of the other.

At the top!

I was pretty keen for a bath after the stinky climb... but underwater volcanoes make the island's water and mud even more potent. I did however dive down to some incredible underwater volcanic fumerals which I feel justified both my lingering stink and the purchase of that expensive diving mask.

The exclusive island of Panerea (Madonna is rumoured to have a house here, xoxo Gossip Girl).

Out to lunch (feat. our faces when we found out Madonna has a house here).

Burning through the islands, this is the black sand beach of Stromobli. 

The whole group went out on a boat from Stromboli at night to watch the volcanic explosions (that go off roughly every 15 minutes). Its was brilliantly prehistoric - but unfortunately my camera lens was a little too full of sea salt, and my knowledge of lava photo settings was a little to non-existent for me to time a photo of an explosion.

This was pretty explosive too. It's just one example of the mid blowing generosity of the Eoilan people. This was our special dinner in Malfa where the locals all cooked us dishes (including this 40 litre pot of chickpea and fennel soup). Despite the fact that the islanders aren't necessarily the wealthiest people in the world we were barely allowed to pay for a single lunch or dinner or drink and it was a battle to pay our bills at hotels as well. Everyone violently insisted that we were family which is, genetically speaking, quite possible, and they showered us with love and carbohydrates. It was actually incredibly touching.

On the 'Gala' evening we presented our family history projects to the locals.

 This is me with my Nonna Maria. We make a good team.

All too soon I had to strap on my scoliosis-enducing backpack and we swung by Acireale in Sicily (more on that in the next post I guess?) before I bid farewell to my teary mother. The next stop was Poland and I'm currently exploring Eastern Europe, but my thoughts are really still on those islands- and will be for a very long time I think.