We boarded the train just before midnight and filled most of a sleeping car.  I was the odd man out so I bunked with Elise, Laura, and Katie.  Katie had bought a bottle of scotch so we helped her lighten the amount she had to carry.  Chris, Dave, Drew, and Jesse were partying hard with 3 fifths of liquor.  We were all beat so we turned out the lights.  I fell asleep by 1:00 and slept soundly until the train rolled on the ferry to cross the Strait of Messina a little after 5:00.  I stayed in a reclined position after we docked in Sicily and paused in Messina to move railroad cars around.  The trip from Messina to Milazzo took about half an hour.  We just barely missed the bus to port so we had to wait beneath overcast skies until the next one.  We packed the bus full, much to the dismay of several locals.  We got off at the port and grouped our gear beneath a metal-roofed rain guard.  It was a good move; a light rain came down most of the time we were there.  Bob, Anne, and several students went to visit the medieval castle that stands above the town.  Carrie, Bianca, and I bought some sandwiches for later and then went to a café for breakfast and coffee.  I rejoined the group at the port to await our 1:15 boat to the Eolian Islands.  Suzanne and I did some crossword puzzles but most of the others were asleep on the baggage.  Bob, Anne, and the others returned from the castle and the rain kept falling.  Finally, departure time arrived. I sat on the lower deck. Once the hydrofoil got underway, I fell asleep, awaking half an hour later when we docked at Vulcano.  Our stop was brief before we headed across the narrow channel to Lipari.  We disembarked and boarded another hydrofoil.  It soon pushed off and we were on our way to Stromboli, an hour away.

Stromboli has a classic stratovolcano profile when viewed from the south.  We stopped briefly at Ginostra on the south shore before circumnavigating clockwise to the town of Stromboli on the north shore.

The volcano is most impressive from the west where one can see that the western side once slid away.  The active crater has been filling the void, which is now a smooth, steaming, steep, black slope that rises about 800m from the sea.  The summit of the island is at 928m. I was surprised at the amount of gas coming out of the summit region. We got great views from the boat.  The steep cliff that defines the edge of the great landslide must be where Dartmouth Ph.D. candidate Gary Malone fell to his death in 1975.  He was on a research project but stayed near the summit too long and tried to descend, with Dick Stoiber, without a flashlight.

We were met at the dock by a guy in a three-wheel pick-up who loaded our bags onto the truck and directed us to walk about 1 km to the Hotel Villagio Stromboli.  The hotel is perched on a low, basalt cliff with a lighthouse-topped volcanic plug about 2km offshore.  It is done in classic Mediterranean whitewashed stucco with labyrinthine passages to the rooms.  My single was off of a terrace overlooking the Tyrhennian Sea with small waves lapping at the black sand beach and the lighthouse offshore.  We all fell in love with the place immediately.

I wrote for a while on the terrace above the sea outside my room.  I had arranged for a guide to come to the hotel at 6:00 to lead us up to the volcano overlook.  He arrived right on time.  His name was Antonio Aquilone.  I made the trip optional because the guide had a 20-person limit; fifteen of us went plus two Germans and an Australian.  We wound through a maze of narrow streets to the west end of town where we picked up a smooth, wide trail along the cliff top above the beach.  Eventually, we reached a gate where a group of German students sat looking very disgruntled.  They had been denied access for lack of an official guide.  We sailed on through to the restaurant where we were issued hard hats.  Antonio explained in Italian that we needed them because of a law not because of any real danger.

Not far from the hotel, the path changed to a slightly steeper, switch backing cobblestone road that was built in 1995 for a Bergman-Rossellini film.  It continued for nearly a kilometer before turning into a fairly steep, deeply worn trail that ran along the eastern edge of the landslide cliff.  Eventually, we came to a metal helipad.  I looked up at the steep, ominous mountain and decided that, in the waning light, I would go no farther.  Antonio then announced that this was the end of the trail.  Going any higher required a special permit.  He explained that volcano had been in a quiescent phase for the past couple of weeks.  Just then, we heard a blast and red rocks rolled down the smooth slope of the volcano that is filling in the landslide escarpment.  Everyone cheered.  The wind picked up and it got chilly.  We put on our jackets; I loaned Bob my rugby shirt, which I had forgotten was in my pack.  We watched a couple of more blasts and then saw a lava flow starting down the slope.  It was now rather dark so we watched the flow grow as we started our descent with the aid of flashlights.

We were all quite tired and hungry by the time we reached the hotel. Jesse, Mike, Erin, Sarah, Val, and I hiked down to the port in search of an open restaurant but found nothing.  We returned to the hotel.  Jesse and I each had half a sandwich in our packs so we ate them on my terrace.  After he left, I took a shower and fell asleep around midnight. 

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