Fire!

As we boarded our ferry to Stromboli, we all agreed we could happily have spent longer exploring the island of Salina, but volcanoes, especially active ones, are the motivation for this holiday, and Stromboli is known for fairly regular little explosions - and, if you're very lucky, something a bit bigger which sends a stream of fiery lava down to the sea.

Our ferry called in at the small village of Ginostra, accessible only by sea, then went on round to Stromboli town. We checked into our small flat by the beach then went to experience its black sand.

The plan for this evening was for me to climb to the 290m platform with a view of the main eruption site, doable without a guide, and for the other three to do a steeper guided trip to the 400m platform. But the person booking us in persuaded me that the guide would be happy to take me to the higher platform. And she was. Stefania was absolutely lovely and told me that she and I would walk at the front, at my pace, because it's miserable to be left lagging at the back. Our group of nine included one guy, Y, walking with his elderly dog as far as she could manage, then planning to carry her the rest of the way - all 27kg of her. So Stefania had two challenges in her care but she took everything in her stride. The last 110m upwards are a bit of a climb, but I managed fine.

We admired the sunset, looked at where the lava sometimes streams down (extra 1) and eagerly watched smoke emerging from the crater (extra 2). As it got darker, we heard the occasional rumble and saw an even more occasional burst of lava into the darkness. My first experience of an active volcano. 

There have been more active volcanic evenings here but we were very happy with what we'd seen.

At 9pm we started our walk back down. When we got to the edge of the town, Stefania surprised me and Y by having ordered a rattly old Piaggio/tuk-tuk to take us and the dog the last mile into the centre so that the others could walk a bit faster. A bit of a win for everyone.