Isole Eolie — Vulcano

The smell reaches you before the island does — sulphur, sharp and mineral, drifting across the water from fumaroles that hiss along the shoreline. Step onto Vulcano's Porto di Levante and the volcanic mud pool steams in a hollow beside the beach, bathers caked in grey-gold clay that dries and cracks in the Sicilian sun. The Gran Cratere rises directly above the port, its rim just an hour's climb and its interior still venting the heat that gave volcanoes their name.

Vulcano is the southernmost of the Aeolian Islands, a volcanic archipelago off Sicily's northeastern coast designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The island gave its name to all volcanoes — the Romans believed Vulcan's forge lay beneath its crater. The Gran Cratere della Fossa last erupted in 1890 and remains vigorously active, its summit fumaroles depositing bright yellow sulphur crystals visible from the trail. The natural mud bath at Porto di Levante, rich in sulphurous minerals, has drawn bathers since antiquity. Black volcanic sand beaches line the eastern shore, and underwater thermal vents at Baia di Ponente warm the sea to temperatures that create a natural hot tub effect. Hydrofoils from Milazzo on the Sicilian mainland reach Vulcano in under an hour.