Day 2: Lipari

After yesterday's early start we had a relaxed start to the morning in Milazzo today. After breakfast in the apartment, we set off for a stroll round the town. Our apartment is really close to the sea, which was a beautiful shade of blue this morning.

When we turned around here we could see up to the castle above the town. It looked higher than I felt like climbing today!

Instead we strolled across town, soon finding the main square - Piazza Roma.

On the far side of the square we came to a long seaside promenade.

The views here were gorgeous, with mountains in one direction...

...and the town in the other.

We were due to catch a ferry from the main port at 12.30. We were strolling up and down to kill some time before then when we heard a loud bang and noticed a small white cloud which had appeared in the sky.

We realised they must fire cannon from the castle at midday! In the video below you should be able to see the little white clouds appearing (and hear the bang a few seconds later).

At 12.15 we went to start queuing for our ferry, which was taking us to the island of Lipari. The journey took just over an hour. It was one of those boats where you have to sit inside, so we didn't get a lot of views until we arrived and began exploring the island.

Lipari is the largest of the Aeolian islands, located around 30km off the coast of Sicily.

It has a population of around 13,000 people, so it isn't a huge place.

It's very pretty though and we enjoyed wandering through the little streets of the main town.

Some of them were pretty narrow. Luckily there didn't seem to be a lot of traffic.

Eventually we came round in a circle, back towards the coast.

It was beautiful here, with a little church out in the sea and a castle on the hill behind.

There was a pretty church in the other direction too...

...and rows of colourful houses along by the harbour.

We walked along a little pier out to sea to get a better view.

I think it was seeing pictures of views like these that made me want to book a trip here  

The views out to sea were lovely too...

...and overall it seems greener in this part of Italy than I expected, although I guess that might be because it's so early in the year.

We were feeling hungry by this point, so found a restaurant on the seafront where we had enormous pizzas and wine

It was just a nice temperature to be able to sit outside and eat; about 24 degrees.

Afterwards we walked back through the narrow streets of the town to catch the ferry back to Milazzo.

Our first Aeolian island visit has definitely been a fun one. Tomorrow we're planning to visit two additional islands; fingers crossed they're as impressive as Lipari