Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ALICUDI
If your goal is to
really
get away from it all, Alicudi just might be your dream destination.
As isolated a place as you'll find in the entire Mediterranean basin, its main settlement has
minimal facilities and no roads. The chief forms of transportation here are boat and mule -
you'll see the latter hauling goods up and down the steep stone steps from the port the
minute you disembark.
Outside summer season, when the town's lone hotel, Ericusa (
Click here
)
, opens for four
months, this is the kind of place where you have to ask around for rooms, and where the
evening's chief entertainment is watching fishermen congregating by the port at midnight
to unload and clean fish. By day it's a great place for off-the-beaten-track hiking - indeed,
walkers and curiosity-seekers are about the only tourists you'll see here outside peak sum-
mer season.
Aside from strolling the streets around the port or climbing the island's central peak,
there isn't much else to do save potter around and find a peaceful place to sunbathe - the
best spots are to the south of the port, where you will have to clamber over boulders to
reach the sea. As you would expect, the waters are crystal clear and there's nothing to dis-
turb you save the occasional hum of a fishing boat.
A two-hour trek up a relentlessly steep but pretty series of stone staircases leads to
Monte
Filo dell'Arpa
(675m) at the top of the island; simply follow the blue arrows painted on the
walls. A pretty church,
Chiesa di San Bartolo
, marks the hike's midpoint. Up top you can circle
the crater of the extinct volcano or follow cattle trails to the dramatic cliffs on Alicudi's
western edge.
Near the summit you'll also find the
Timpone delle Femmine
, huge fissures where women
are said to have taken refuge during pirate raids. Be sure to wear sturdy shoes and bring
plenty of water as there is virtually no shade along the way.
Siremar (year-round) and Ustica Lines (summer only) run hydrofoils from Alicudi to Li-
pari (€18.85, two hours), Santa Marina Salina (€18.80, 1½ hours), Rinella (€16.80, 1¼
hours) and Filicudi (€11.10, 30 minutes).
