March 20 2016

This weekends adventure started when Nina arrived in Ragusa Thursday night. Andrea also happened to be in town so we met at the tea shop. When we got to the bus station we realized we had forgotten to take a picture and then tried our best.

For dinner we met Anna and Martina for pizza.

Friday morning, my host dad had to work in Catania, so we went with him and from there his driver, my pal Pietro took us all the up to Milazzo. Me, Pietro and Nina.

From Messina we hopped on the boat and it was only an hour until Lipari.

It was like walking into a photo from National Geographic.

Our friend Carol, from Brazil, lives in Lipari and was our tour guide for the weekend.

The streets were beautiful, and the town was tiny. Only about 10,000 people live on the Island. 

The Castle.

The window.

Lipari.

A little fishing port.

The group.

The balcony at Carol's host family's house.

Saturday, we went to the next closed Island Vulcano. As you may have guessed it is a still active volcano! At its base live about 700 daring residents. 

Flag photo.

At the top there was smoke. The volcano is very closely monitored and the last explosion was in 1888.

Embracing the smoke.

Sulfur crystals.

We had a lot of fun taking photos. It felt like being on a movie set, except the landscape was real!

At the base of the volcano, Nina and I took a dip in a natural hot spring. It was more tepid than hot, but it had natural bubbles, and if you placed your hands on the ground there were hot places.

Black sand beach!

Sunday morning we had a very nutritious breakfast of tiramisu made by Carol's 12 year old host sister Alesia. 

We took a little walk down from the house and tried skipping rocks on the water.

Ragusa, Siracusa, Lipari.

Eventually it was time to go home. Nina and I took a boat ride back to Milazzo, a bus to Messina, a bus to Catania, and then two separate buses to Siracusa and Ragusa. On the bus we saw a smoking Mount Etna after the latest explosion. It was an explosively fun weekend!