Some island cruising - The Canaries and Sicily, then Milan

[RooFlyer]

Afternoon tea of some Sicilian bites



Dinner in the main restaurant as evening fell





I bought this - Etna red ... of course!



Entrée of Beef Polpette and main of lamb loin.

 

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Overnight transit to Lipari, main town of the Aeolian Islands off the NE coast of Sicily. Really looking forward to this day, as in the afternoon/evening we will be 'cruising past Stromboli' - Stromboli being a permanently erupting volcano island.



This was a busy visit. We moored off the town and took the vessel's lifeboats into a wharf in the town (this is the usual way of tendering in).









We had to walk 15 mins or so through the town as the coaches can no longer reach the wharf.

 

[RooFlyer]

We were ging to do a tour clockwise around most of the island.

First stop gave this fantastic view, from the east of Lipari near Pianogreca south-east towards Vulcano island - pretty appropriately named!





Dunno about the volcano, but check-out that massive landslip immediately behind the town.



Further on, we got a view over to Salina Island.





And furth on still, a tantalising peek north-east past Panarea Island through the gloom to Stomboli!



Onwards to the end of the road, Acquacalda (~ Hot water). A video showing the road and some of the commentary (not the best this time) - and a view of Stromboli.

There used to be hot springs here until an earthquake, so now its just a fishing town. But for me, the other thing about it was the pumice deposits (pumice: that very light, air filled volcanic rock that can float) - mined for ages for the pumice which was used for 'stone washed' denim and beauty products. Now closed.



But did we stop for a look? We did not. The bus did a 5 point turn and we headed back.

 

[RooFlyer]

We returned to Lipari town to visit the Citadel, and the museum there. The history of the town and island mirrors Sicily as a whole, but there is a rich history here going back to the Neolithic period, bronze and iron ages, the Greeks, Romans, Carthaginians (many wrecks from this period, and objects in the museum), Arabs, Normans, then the Hohenstaufen Kings, followed by the Angevins, and then the Aragonese, whose line became the Spanish monarchy, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. etc etc. You know the score by now.:

But then (Wikipedia)

In 1544, Ottoman admiral Hayreddin Barbarossa ransacked Lipari and enslaved the entire population. Five French galleys under Captain Polin, including the superb Réale, accompanied Barbarossa's fleet on a diplomatic mission to Sultan Suleiman in execution of the Franco-Ottoman alliance. French priest Jérôme Maurand lamented about the depredation to his Christian fellow men during the campaign at Lipari: "To see so many poor Christians, and especially so many little boys and girls [enslaved] caused a very great pity." He also mentioned "the tears, wailings and cries of these poor Lipariotes, the father regarding his son and the mother her daughter... weeping while leaving their own city in order to be brought into slavery by those dogs who seemed like rapacious wolves amidst timid lambs".

A number of the citizens were ransomed in Messina and eventually returned to the islands.

Charles V then had his Spanish subjects repopulate the island and build the massive city walls atop the walls of the ancient Greek acropolis in 1556.

The citadel, with the Cathedral





Walk up to the entrance through the customary old narrow streets



Showing the 16th century fort atop old Greek walls.







Inside the ciadel walls, excavations have unearthed ruins from the Roman period,



Greek and prior (the cathedral tower further on)





and buildings from 2,300 - 900BC (bronze age)

 

[RooFlyer]

St Bartholomew's Cathedral, as usual for Sicily, was built on the site of a Greek temple, a Muslim mosque, several earlier church and monasteries in the Norman period, which were destroyed by invaders, and this version dates from the mid 16th century under Charles V.

I visited this by myself, going ahead of the group, who were stuck in the museum, being shown every pot and artifact there, it seemed.



Bell tower from the late 1700s; the façade was re-built in 1861 after a lightning strike.





The vaulted ceiling, painted with Biblical scenes - eg parting of the Red Sea top 1/4 (upside down) and worship of the golden calf (below it, right way up)





Leaving the site down the steps in front of the cathedral.