The next morning started bright and early and while having breakfast, we decided on a whim to go on a day excursion to other islands (*since we were already there right?!) Panarea and Stromboli … Here we come!
The hotel staff were more than happy to give us various options and opinions on how we should go about the trip and I guess they were thankful and much more animated in their descriptions upon hearing we could understand and speak Italian and thus, it turned into a long, intense and very informative discussion (*this is known to happen often with lots of hand gestures, loud tones and elaborate descriptions). In the end we opted for an excursion that visited 2 islands, departing Lipari at midday and returning at around 10pm, which gave us the morning to continue exploring Lipari.
Midday was finally upon us and waiting with batted breaths, we boarded the boat (*with quite a good looking and charming guide). My heart continued to skip beats as the engine started and we began to move away from the delightful port of Lipari and onto the unknown.
We chose to sit on the top deck, with the sun beating down on our backs but the view was just too beautiful to have missed out on (*except none of us really bothered with sun screen so we did end up with burned shoulders). The boat guide flamboyantly introduced himself and began his sparkling description of the waters, rocks, volcanoes and islands as we steadily headed towards Panarea.
The boat came to a gentle stop halfway through the journey and rested just inside a cove, one of the many UNESCO sites in the area where we would all jump in for a swim (*I have to say, I was a little weary about jumping into the ocean in the middle of no where but the water was so inviting). The water was refreshing and clear and we could see all the way to the bottom. In some areas, steam and bubbles gushed under the water from the continuous mini volcanic eruptions under water (*the smell of sulphur was overwhelming though).
Half an hour later we continued on our way …
karibu 