A wild Italian island

It is a wonderful antidote to the stress of modern life, says Kate Harding in The Economist’s 1843 magazine – a wild island that lies just 20 miles off the coast of Sicily but feels worlds away. The ferry from the mainland stops at several larger, more populous members of the Aeolian archipelago – including Vulcano, Lipari, Salina and Stromboli – and all but empties of passengers before it reaches little Filicudi. Covering less than four square miles, this mountainous outpost once had some 2,000 inhabitants, but most left for America in the early 20th century and it now has only around 250. Most people visiting it do so by yacht, “grazing” its spectacular, rocky coastline, and leave its interior – an “unspoiled” national park, crossed by just one road – to the curious few.

Filicudi Port is a string of whitewashed houses with a bank, a food market and a chemist. There is only one other proper costal village, Pecorini Mare, where you’ll find a fine restaurant, La Sirena, famed for its crudo (cuts of raw fish) and spaghetti alle mandorle (a tomato and almond sauce). Go out snorkelling or diving with local boatman Nino Terrano; make trips to nearby islands – to climb Stromboli, say, or sip cocktails at the Bridge, a “hip” nightclub on Panarea; or stay put on Filicudi, hiking the mule trails between its abandoned hamlets and relishing its salty air, laden with the scent of caper bushes, wild mint and thyme. The island’s most “magical” holiday let is Casa Zucco Grande, which sleeps four, from s1,600 per week (www.sopranovillas.com).