Lipari

The pure white of the pumice quarries

The north-eastern part of the island of Lipari, and in other parts, is covered by a layer of very white pumice . This was emitted by Monte Pilato, a small hill located between the villages of Canneto and Acquacalda, in the Porticello locality. In reality, very little remains of Monte Pilato, because it had been the site of pumice mining activities since the 1960s.
 le cave di pomiceWhat remains now of Monte Pilato is a rock face around 200 metres high, white as marble seen from afar. Mining activities were halted in the mid-1990s, shortly before the Aeolian Islands became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000. Pumice has always been a major attraction on the island.
From a naturalistic point of view, its white colour creates an almost unreal landscape. Pumice powder, the result of the erosion of the pumice banks of Monte Pilato, also covers the beach below and all the land around it, and obviously the seabed in front of it too, which has taken on a wonderful turquoise colour over time, almost like a natural swimming pool.
In this corner of paradise, the only note out of tune are the residues of the pumice industry, which have not yet been disposed of. Though the buildings of the 1960s are a wonderful example of industrial archaeology, the industries of the 1990s have left iron walkways and warehouses, soon to be disposed of. From a volcanological point of view, the pumices of Lipari are among the most famous in the world for the purity of their colour, due to the involvement of only one magma during the 19th-century eruption of Monte Pilato.

Stories of the sea and shipwrecks. The wrecks of the Aeolian Islands

The prehistoric village of Cala Junco

Malvasia delle Lipari DOC

Lipari at the centre of Mediterranean history

“Vulcanian” eruptions

Panarea and its history

At the heart of trade in history

The underwater morphological elements of the Aeolian Islands

Panarea, where sea and volcanoes become sculptors

Vulcano, the youngest of the Aeolian works of art

Seven islands, dozens of volcanoes

The senses tell The summit craters

Filicudi, a submerged paradise

The summit craters

Between brush strokes of sulphur and clouds of steam: the fumaroles of the port of Vulcano

The Thermal Baths of Saint Calogerus

The malleability of Vulcano’s mud

Salina, the green island with twin mountains

Lipari, where history intertwines with volcanoes to create archaeology

Alicudi, where time has stood still

The senses tell The salt lake of Lingua

The senses tell The Village of Capo Graziano

Where do Vulcano’s gases come from?

The Sciara del Fuoco

The hidden part of the Aeolian Islands

The Village of Capo Graziano

The senses tell The Sciara del Fuoco

The pure white of the pumice quarries

The Gran Cratere of the Fossa: when the volcano becomes a sculptor

The senses tell The Pumice Quarries of Lipari

The 2002-03 eruption

“Strombolian” activity in the place where its definition was born

Volcanoes as a natural art form

Lipari Castle, “fused” with the lava

The stacks of Panarea

Filicudi: small island, big history

Pollara, between poetry and beauty

The polis of the living and the necropolis of the dead

Myths and legends about volcanoes

The Cathedral of Lipari and the Norman Cloister of the Benedictine Monastery

Tsunamis: a not uncommon phenomenon in Stromboli

The underwater fumarolic activity of Lisca Bianca

How pumice is formed

The senses tell The Stacks of Panarea

The Aeolian Islands, where volcanology was born

The ancient production of salt

The salt lake of Lingua

Stromboli, the volcano that breathes