Pulling into the tiny port of Panarea, we’re met by a golf cart sent to take us to our pensione. (On Panarea, even the police drive golf carts, since no cars are allowed.) We pass square, traditional Aeolian houses—magenta bougainvillea climbing the white walls and dripping over the pergolas—with wooden doors as blue as the sea. The air is perfumed with flowers—wild pomegranate, purple acacia, daisies, lilies, birds-of-paradise. “Da delirio,” says Giovanna. Absolutely delirious.
We check into our simple room, wander along the path to the rocky beach, and come back in time for dinner. Like its rooms, the food at Trattoria La Sirena is simple and clean. We have sea urchin pasta with parsley and tomatoes, and mille gusti spaghetti, with all flavors of the island represented in the dish.
In the morning, at exactly the same time (Italians have a strict sense of the order of a day), everyone on the island finishes their coffee and goes to the beach. With only a few square feet of sand, the beachgoers, mainly Italians, spread out on the rocks, wading waist-deep in the water with their cellphones. To avoid the weekend crowds, we take a steep footpath to a more distant beach, and swim in a magnificent blue cove—until I am stung, painfully, by a jellyfish. On closer inspection, the place is infested with the little monsters—meduse—which makes swimming like strolling through a minefield. These islands, I am reminded, are full of discomforts and mild dangers.
On Panarea, we do everything but niente: We climb the mountain until our trail gets lost in the sticker bushes. We hike to a deserted beach and go skinny-dipping. We eat pizza from a wonderful panificio for lunch, scout for jellyfish at the beach, and stop by La Sirena, where we attempt to get the recipe for mille gusti but end up with some of the owner’s salt-cured capers instead, as consolation. That evening, as we sip Prosecco on our terrace at the cool, white Hotel Raya, the morning seems like a distant memory. We watch Stromboli in the distance, smoking like an Italian, a pack a day.
On our last night, we eat dinner at Da Pina, with its lemon-painted blue ceramic tables outdoors. We try fillets of eggplant rolled with olives and capers, and the lightest eggplant gnocchi imaginable. Then I am introduced to totani, a large yet perfectly tender squidlike creature, this one stuffed with grilled radicchio. If I had to be stung by a jellyfish every time I ate totani (flying squid), I’d call it a fair deal. We finish up with a soothing rosemary liquore, inhaling the island’s nighttime aromas.
Lipari is an hour—and a world—away by hydrofoil. The islanders consider Lipari “town,” not another island, and by local standards it’s as busy as Milan. With its 10,000 inhabitants, pumice mining, and fishing fleet, Lipari is the center of Aeolian industry—and with its castle and archaeological museum, it’s the center of culture, too. Some people will tell you it has the best restaurants in the islands, but Giovanna and I decide that they are just the most formal. Like everything about Lipari, much of the food is overworked and commercial.
But Lipari is still well worth visiting, for its untouristy streets and its remarkable castle. There, we spend an afternoon contemplating a collection of Greek terra-cotta theatrical masks, with a vast array of characters—there’s the chatterbox, the gossip, the flatterer, the crotchety old man; there are types from Greek plays lost to time except for their faces, full of unspoken expression.
Eventually, we find some small, authentic restaurants on the island: At Ristorante La Nassa, we have an exquisite caponata in which the flavors are distinct, playing off each other rather than homogenized. Ristorante Nenzyna is smaller and simpler, and the dishes are traditional—fish in olives, capers, celery, and onion; a fish stew made with tomatoes, capers, and dried bread. Giovanna and I agree we’d be happy eating at that little restaurant every day of our lives.
Yet for all those good meals, a corner of my hunger remains unsatisfied. I haven’t tasted pasta with fennel fronds and sardines yet. Nor will I find the dish I want on Lipari. For that, we have to go to Filicudi.
As we check the hydrofoil schedules for the following day, I am reluctant to return to Filicudi for fear of spoiling the bittersweet memory of my first visit there. But I am more afraid that I will never taste that fennel pasta again.
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