Italy Guide
Sicily
The Aeolian Islands
Volcanic in origin, the Aeolian Islands are named after Aeolus, the Greek god who kept the winds he controlled shut tight in one of the islands' many caves. According to Homer, Odysseus put into the Aeolians and was given a bag of wind to help him home, but his sailors opened it too soon and the ship was blown straight back to port. Their strategic importance attracted the Greeks, who settled on Lípari in 580 BC, but they later became a haven for pirates and a place of exile, a state of affairs that continued right into the twentieth century.
The twentieth century saw mass emigration, and even now islands such as Panarea and Alicudi have just a hundred or so year-round inhabitants. It's only recently that the islanders stopped scratching a subsistence living and started welcoming tourists, so you won't be alone if you come during the summer months, when the population of the islands leaps from 10,000 to 200,000. Every island is expensive, with prices in shops as well as restaurants reflecting the fact that most food is imported. But get out to the minor isles or come in blustery winter for a taste of what life was like on the islands twenty – or a hundred – years ago: unsophisticated, rough and beautiful.
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