Lipari

We enjoyed five days at Lipari, the middle island of the Aeolian island chain of Sicily. We stayed in Casa Angela (featured photo), what New Zealanders call a ‘bach’ and Scots call a ‘crib’, right on the beach. a Myanmar political activist had put considerable effort into creating a piece of street art in the derelict building next door - public spaces seem fair game for political slogans in Italy.

Some of the gloss went off the numerous swims outside our front door when Fiona was badly stung by a jellyfish. Stingers have become more prominent in recent years, perhaps because of climate change, but also perhaps because of increased flow through the Suez Canal. Official advice is to scrape off the tentacles, using a credit card or similar, and then to douse the area in cold water, followed later by warm water. Don't follow the example of the TV series, “Friends”, where Joey kindly stepped to piss on Monica’s jellyfish sting - it just makes sting worse.

Tourism is the mainstay of Lipari’s economy. Amazingly, nearly all the water used by the crowds of tourists has to be imported from the mainland.

A new Lipari vineyard is creating its own food ‘story’ in which the flavour of wine expresses the ecology of arid landscape, low-fertility volcanic soils and soil biodiversity – in one French word, its ‘terroir’. Productivity of the vineyard is very small compared to what could be achieved by irrigation, labour costs are high, and the vines standalone and grow vertically rather than being trained along wires.  This is all about quality rather than quantity. This philosophy builds and transmits local knowledge and incentivises conservation, but it's also about identity, history and people. The wine cellar depicted in the photograph emulates the construction of a local monastery. It's also good business, judging from what our son and daughter-in-law paid for the wine tour - thanks! New Zealand is rapidly developing its terroir for wines, but lags well behind in creating specialist local foods.