Lipari is the main island, its people warm and friendly, with its romantic citadel offering an uninterrupted record of its inhabitants from Neolithic times, featuring an extensive acropolis. Even people who hate museums and history will be fascinated spending at least a few hours here, starting with the ruins of the original settlement and proceeding through rooms that have something even the Uffizi and Vatican can't boast: interesting explanations in English! If you're feeling energetic, hike to the top of Mount Sant'Angelo : the breathtaking view will greatly repay your efforts. Because the Aeolians are volcanoes, all extinct save one, each island has beaches of a unique character. Lipari is the oldest island, and thus its lidos are covered with the finest white sand, actually the end product of black lava. In earlier days, when it was the talcum capital of the world, several mines on Lipari disposed of the finest powder, unusable even for baby's posteriors! So much of it deposited on the sea floor that Lipari's waters are still the palest blue.

The Greeks colonized these islands around 580 BC and named them after the mythical figure Aeolus. According to Homer, this local god-king kept the winds bottled up in a cave. When Odysseus came by on his long trip home, he was given a favorable wind, but he accidentally released it from its bag and so was blown off course. All the world's winds do seem to converge here at times, though in summer it's as likely to be still and hot as wild and tempestuous.

Salina is the garden island. Its slopes are blanketed with deep green vineyards that produce a heady malvasìa ; its waters are populated with fish and octopus. Take home some of the local capers packed in salt: until you've tried them this way, you'll never really know what a true caper tastes like (if you don't like capers, you may discover it's really the vinegar they're usually packed in you don't like, not the capers!).

Tiny Panarea is the jet-set island, and perhaps the most picturesque, with its stark white houses and brilliant yellow ginestra bushes; it boasts three small but famous hotels and the summer homes of many wealthy Italians (including many a renowned fashion designer). The uninhabited satellite Basiluzzo might remind you of Delos , although its ruins are Roman. Filicudi (and smaller Alicudi ) are both blessed with magnificent shores and underwater vistas; a popular outing is to Filicudi's Grotto of the Sea Lion . But if you're looking for wide sandy beaches, stay off these islands: they are strictly for snorkelers and divers, who will do their sunbathing on near-vertical slabs of lava.

Stromboli , the tragic island made famous in Roberto Rossellini's film of the same name (starring Ingrid Bergman), features two characteristic towns on opposite sides of a mildly active volcano. This island is the "baby," and so it has the blackest beaches.