A different sort of fire

We caught the ferry to Vulcano, which we'd been warned stank of sulphur. So much so that I'd even packed masks for everyone. As we got off the boat by the yellowed rock stacks (the Faraglione) we could smell it, but it was really not all that strong.

Our rooms were on Vulcanello, a small extinct volcano now joined to the main part of the island by hardened lava from long-ago eruptions. We went for a climb up Vulcanello to the Valle dei Mostri, allegedly a circle of monster-shaped lava rocks. An OK walk, but there were good reasons for it not being signposted. If there were any monster shapes, they were well hidden by vegetation.

Our climb further up to the extinct crater was a minor disaster, with both Secondborn and me getting only part-way up, then needing to come back down very carefully backwards, finding whatever not-too-slithery footholds we could and clinging on to clumps of grass and the occasional thorny branch.

We recovered by having a lazy afternoon together in town. Where, later, someone tried to persuade me to book a boat trip round Stromboli. 'I did that last might and there was no fire. Will there be fire tonight?' He shrunk a bit. 'No'. So perhaps Pasquale knew before he took us out and that's why he was taciturn...

We bumped into Firstborn as the sun was setting and were drawn by its orange glow towards the black-sand beach on the west side of the isthmus. He then went a bit further and got into the sea.