Lipari, Aeolian Islands, Sicily

Well our trip over to Lipari on the Aeolian Islands wasn't the best. The ferries hadn't been running all morning because of bad conditions. We got on one of the first ferries heading out and WOW, it was rough!!!!! Poor Reese went like a sheet of paper about 3/4 of the way over and then went clammy and threw up. Thankfully I'd recognized all the impending signs of puke and I'd thrown my north face rain jacket in front of her and she puked all over that. CHARMING. She recovered quickly as soon as we were off the boat though. Lipari is a beautiful island, however I think our opinions were dampened by the poor weather and the fact that we visited in the off season, on a SUNDAY. So hardly anything was open, and we wandered around in the streets which were empty and quite dreary looking with all the businesses closed up!!!! The  hotel we stayed at, Residence Hotel La Giara was lovely, and we if I returned in the summer we would stay there. It had groves of citrus trees in the gardens, and a swimming pool, plus it was very close to the port and the main street with all the shops and restaurants.  There had been a cancellation with the first hotel we booked, they had to close due to some sort of emergency and this hotel was recommended to us. I'm certainly glad it was!!! The trip back to the mainland in the boat wasn't that bad. I think you definitely need more than one night here though. Because we would have liked to have explored Vulcano( the island next to it) which is actually a volcano, and Stomboli which is an active volcano, but we just didn't have time.
ALSO...if you ever decide to go here and have a rental car, you can park it at Garage delle Isole in Milazzo and they pile you into an old car without seatbelts( yeah kind of scary!!!) and drive you to the port and pick you up. It was dirt cheap to do and they had EXCELLENT service!!!!!!!

The streets in Lipari(LEE-pah-ree). I'm sure these islands are awesome in the summer,but they seemed quite  desolate and  depressing in the winter!!!! Lots of the businesses were closed until the "season" started again and the weather was crappy the day we arrived.

Had lots of little alleyways though :)

I adore these steps!!!!!

The cliffs on one side of the island

a peek into the main harbour of Lipari. The ferry comes in and docks just below where I was taking the picture

my artsy shot of a lemon tree in the gardens of the  hotel we stayed in. 

Reese standing among the lemon and orange trees that were EVERYWHERE at the hotel!! It was pretty cool.