Bill-on-the-Hill

So with the trip done, here are a few capsule reviews of some of the outfits we dealt with. The meaning of the letter grades is:

The old castle in Lipari town.

Bill-on-the-Hill

This was the day when, by way of our choice of excursions, we surely convinced our British traveling companions, D and Z, that Americans, or at least the ones from small towns in the Southwest, are a little ... odd. Well, we probably are, but there's a reason for what we did. Read on ...

The main course at the Trattoria ai Gechi, a side of tuna large enough to feed about 20, but so delicious that the eight of us polished it off in no time flat... Faces omitted, because the emphasis is on the fish, not the fish eaters.

The World's Greatest Mother-In-Law and Marco inspecting one of the ruins on Panarea; more conventional stuff to do while on Panarea visible in the background.

This is the Bronze Age site on the island of Panarea. It's unexcavated, undeveloped, and almost unvisited, just the ticket if you're tired of the crowds (such as they are) of the beaches and resorts.

Bill-on-the-Hill

Well, if you can't climb the mountain, circumnavigate it. That was the plan for today, and it produced a considerably more laid-back day that included the kind of feast that most tourists come to Italy for -- most who are a little more sane than we are, anyway. But what's a cactus plantation doing there?...

The volcanic plug of Strombolicchio, off the coast of Stromboli village. If you can get out to this tiny island, bring snorkeling gear; the waters around it are superbly clear, and you can see the submerged parts of the volcanic structure far beneath you as you swim.

A prickly-pear cactus near the village of Ginostra, showing a piece of volcanic rock that had been blasted into it at the time of Stromboli's last significant explosive eruption in 2003. Bet that hurt!

If you're staying in Ginostra, here's how you get your luggage from the dock to the inns. (Sorry for the cut-off rear of the "vehicle"; it moved while I was shooting...)

Bill-on-the-Hill

If you've waded through the previous days of this, you may be wondering, "So if the whole idea of this outing was to see volcanoes, why call the thread Bill versus the volcano? Seems contrary to the goal." Well, laying aside a certain movie reference, there's a reason, and today's events will begin to explain what it is.

Rockfall in the Sciara del Fuoco, giving an idea why they don't let you hike into it ...

A "puff" of ash from the crater of Stromboli volcano, as viewed from the 400-meter level. The brownish color says that there's volcanic ash in this, not just the steam that Stromboli emits all the time.

The Laghetto di Fanghi (mud bath) on the island of Vulcano. This photo gives a good sense of what this attraction looks like, but for the smell that remains in your swimsuit once you've immersed yourself, you'll just have to use your imagination...

A sample of what you can see from the boat while circumnavigating the island of Vulcano. I don't know what this is or how you can access it from dry land, but it's pretty...

Bill-on-the-Hill

Fourth day of the trip, and time to start doing what we came for, namely hiking into some weird places -- like, say, the crater of an active volcano.

Elemental sulfur in the orifice of a fumarole on Vulcano. The central rock is about 8 inches in diameter. Just barely visible on the left are one or two little orange dots. These are drops of ''molten'' sulfur produced by the heat of the volcanic activity. You won't find these at many other places on earth -- at least not very many you'd want to hike to.

Inner crater of Gran Cratere, Vulcano. There's a little human dot in the lower-to-middle right-hand part of the photo; that's "D," who's descending a possibly-not-entirely-official trail to the crater bottom -- which was molten lava only about 110 years ago.

On the trail up to Gran Cratere at the top of Vulcano. From left: Emily, WGMIL (World's Greatest Mother-In-Law), D and Z. Lipari island in background. From this point the hike would start to smell bad, and it wasn't because of the hikers ...

Looking into the active crater of Vulcano, in the Aeolian Islands. The trail around the crater is visible on the left.