Our plane to Palermo was at 6:45 AM, Taylor and I agreed to meet at our "meeting spot" at 4 AM. Yeah, I know - we're crazy to consider that time, but it was necessary. I got up at 3:15 AM and somehow got out of the apartment all ready and wide awake by 3:30 AM. Taylor was already up too at the time and I messaged him that I was leaving before I headed to the bank since my phone is broken and is now only limited to WiFi (did I ever mention I dropped my phone in the toilet while I was in Switzerland? yeah that happened). But somehow we met up at 3:30 by the bank at the same time! It's just so funny how we've become so linked without knowing.
It was still dark and we were calm as we were trying to figure out where the taxis were (since no buses or trains nor tram were running). We found a taxi parked off the side near Taylor's apartment and asked him to take us to Fiumicino. We arrived at the airport earlier than expected a little after 4 AM and we were waiting inside the entrance/lobby area because no one was at the check-in tells, security, or information centers, nor was the cafe open! There was only two other travelers hanging around. We had to wait for an hour and a half before the cafe was open and we could get to security! It was just funny because we intended to meet up at 4 AM and yet here we were at the airport. We weren't tired at all since we were so excited and raring to go! Traveling with Taylor was always relaxing and fun, even if there would be mishaps - it would just be fine because my best friend is at my side with me. Anyway, It wasn't 'til another hour and a half until we finally departed for Palermo.
We got into Parlermo and we had to take the taxi to the train station. From there we took the train to Milazzo. Funny story - Taylor was chatting with the taxi driver in Italian and at one point they had a conversation about Milazzo (our next destination) and how it costs 250 euros. A little later we looked at Taylor's GPS and noticed we were passing where the station was and turns out the taxi driver thought we wanted to go all the way to Milazzo!!! We quickly fixed it so the cab driver turned around and we were at the train station within 10 minutes. Moral of the story: don't let Taylor talk to taxi drivers in Italian again.
We then caught our first train after figuring out which train we had to take (it was the one that was going all the way to Rome!). The train we rode in looked like the Hogwarts train! It was awesome. A lady shared our "room" and we chatted every now and then in Italian. I noticed her Sicilian dialect! It was a cool revelation. And I must say, the train ride was beautiful because we were riding along the coast and through tunnels.
We got into Milazzo and we had only an hour and we didn't want to miss our ferry, so we once again took the taxi and got to the port. We "checked in" and got our official tickets and waited for our boat to come. It took many stops, including a change-over at the island of Lipari. And soon, we were finally in Stromboli by 3 PM.
Stromboli's volcano looming ahead of us!
Stromboli
We got to Stromboli's port! We could see most of the town from our vantage point because it was so small. And Taylor and I was predicting what the town would look like on the way over on the boat. We predicted white walls, a few beaches and very few restaurants.
We were right.
Cliff landing near a church. I mention this area later on! :)
We had a general idea where our "hostel"/inn was so we soaked in the sights as we got there. We found it after asking a few locals and wow! Our hostel wasn't like a hostel at all. It was more like rented apartments. And it was SO beautiful! It had a kitchenette, great bathroom, and best of all: a terrace. Our booking said it was a room with a garden view. It was much more than that because once you climbed the stairs of the terrace, on one side was the view of the town and the ocean, and behind us was the sloping volcano that was spewing ash and smoke.
Even though our host gave free "breakfast", which by most countries' standards is jam and croissants, our inn host suggested shopping at the supermarket for our breakfast since we have a kitchenette in our room. Well, it is more like a sink and a poor man's hot plate but it works! So we went to the supermarket later on before grabbing dinner.
After checking in, we set off to explore the town. We found that there was not many tourists (2 or 3 couples) and that the island was starting to be recognized by tourists because it has tourist seasonal restaurants and inns. There was some construction going on and I saw a lot of locals working on buildings, particularly to make it tourist-friendly. Which was kind of sad, but what we can be happy about is that the town can't expand anymore due to it being a heritage island, so it can keep its charm.
As night fell, we hung around this only restaurant we knew was open that also had a bar. As we waited for the kitchen to open, we drank at the bar while locals played card games.
Night was pitch dark on Stromboli. Our inn host warned us about this when we arrived. There are no streetlights nor porch lights, so after dinner we had to use our phones' flashlights to guide our way back. But when we looked up... wow. There was so many stars as far as the eyes could see. We walked to the landing at the cliff near the church, so we could see the full view of the sky. As we walked back to our room, we joked with our phone lights by flickering it on it off like the lantern in the online game Amnesia (a horror game). We kinda spooked ourselves, hahaha.
When we got back to our room, we climbed the terrace, and didn't look up until we sat down in the chairs and turned off our phones' lights. And then we looked up. I can't really describe the feeling I got then. So many stars and you could see the shadow of the volcano behind us. I could identify Cassiopeia's Chair, Orion, the Little Dipper, the Big Dipper, Hydra....... So many constellations! I am really upset my camera couldn't capture it. But I guess it will be a memory now.
It was a great way to end the night.
We intended to get up early the next morning because we saw that the sunset went behind our terrace so we knew the sunrise would be right in front of us! Taylor and I wanted to get up early to see the sunrise tomorrow morning and enjoy breakfast with it. We set our alarm at 5:30.
We woke up FREEZING, and neither of us wanted to get out of bed. So we didn't and slept more. We woke up again at 7:30 and made breakfast with some items we got at the supermarket (between us, a grand total was 6 euros for everything) We got bananas, Nutella, rice cracker patty thinggies, and tea. We made our breakfast a special one - Taylor arranged the plates and made me look away until he was done. When he was done, we brought everything on the terrace and enjoyed breakfast with a great view and warm air.
After breakfast we set off to check out the beach. It was barely 10 and our ferry leaves at 3, so we had a lot of time. We walked down the coast and around about. We even walked to the other side of the town!
We weren't sure how to get back to our street, so we thought we could take a shortcut from where we were. Somehow, we ended up back at our room before we knew it. You know that feeling where you just walk down a street and find yourself ending up at your starting point? Yeah.
So then we checked out and headed back to the beach because we wanted to save some sand to bring home. I wanted to start a sand collection and bottle it up. So I have my first sand collection: the black sands of Stromboli!
We walked past the port to the little "beach" on the other side and put down our bags so we could climb the smooth rocks and see on the other side where it is not reachable.
We waited for another hour at the port for our ferry because everything was closed (even the restaurant we went to). So we couldn't have lunch. We sat down at this closed hotel that had chairs and tables at the front which faced the ocean. There was a vender-cart by the port that sold fruits and vegetables. We had leftover toasted bread from our breakfast (we were also saving the nutella and rice patties for another day). Taylor got this brilliant idea and ran to the vendor. He came back running to me and raised the bag over his head with this ridiculous expression on his face. He stopped and realized what he got had spilled out all over the streets and I couldn't help but laugh!!! I was cracking up all the while he went back to get more and pick up what he had spilled and walked back to me. It was so funny and I don't think I ever laughed so hard. He had gotten baby tomatoes to make bruschette with our toasted bread. We enjoyed the meal and soon our ferry, which was an actual hydrofoil, arrived and we were heading back to Milazzo.
(See all those red things in the middle of the
street? Yeah, those are the tomatoes Taylor spilled. He's at the vendor
getting more here, hahahaha. I'm still laughing about this!)
In Milazzo, we decided to walk to the train station since we had a good hour and a half and we figured we could save money by walking. We picked up food on the way (pizza and pita sandwiches) and walked through streets that actually turned out to be highways. Oops! We were okay though and kept to the side of the street. We made it to the station after 45 minutes just in time right as it got dark. Good timing. We went to buy our tickets but there was nobody at the information desk and we also found out that
the ticket machine wouldn't accept our credit cards and it only accepted coins as cash. After not getting what we need from an old man (language barrier and dialect hits again!), I decided to try asking one more time and asked two girls for change - turns out they're from Canada and the US! And they had plenty change to spare. So lucky!
So we got our tickets and sat down at the platform and ate our dinner we had gotten earlier. It was dark and creepy and there wasn't a lot of people at the station. The platforms were well lit though and we could see in the distance a really big factory that looks like a mini-city, and if you listen closely, you can hear announcements on speakers. There was also a huge fire coming out of one of the towers. Taylor and I made Lord of the Rings jokes for the entire stay at the station - that the fire was Sauron watching us and Milazzo was Gondor.
We got on the train and made a transfer in Messina and we were finally on our way to Catania.