You can make as many trips as you want on this island and you will still find some other places where to go. I can say that one week is not long enough for it. If you like hiking you need to see the vulcan which is responsible for all the thermal springs around the island. The name of the vulcan is Monte Epomeo and it is still active but it is not seen outwardly (except the springs). You can join the hiking path in the Fontana town, which is the highest placed town on the island. People here used to argue with people living in the neighbouring town Serrara. In Fontana they claim that they have the most beautiful girls and people from Serrara proclaim the best wine :) Walking to the Monte Epomeo takes you around one comfortable hour. We met two german tourists enthusiast for hiking along the way and we spent all the time with them till we were at the top of the hill. It is very nice path, which begins by the road in the town. That part is followed by a pleasant part in the forest and short path on the igneous rocks. There are only few forest stairs among the trees after that towards the restaurant, which is directly under the peak and next to the church built in the rock. There is excellent view of the whole island from the top, but it is quite difficult to take good pictures because of the sun.
Once you are in this part of island you need to take water from the thermal springs. The most famous springs in this area are 27 Celsius degrees warm springs Nitrodi and Olmitello. Nitrodi spring is for people having skin diseases and infections and you can find it in Buonopane to the east from Fontana. Olmitello spring is suitable for making digestion better and it is near Maronti beach. We visited this beach. It is 2km long beach with many hotels and sun chairs with the warmest sea on the island. It is caused by plenty of warm thermal spring which sprouted up here in the sea. We weren’t very fascinated by this beach, but if you like fine-grained sand you should go there. It is worth to notice all the houses and restaurants around the road which are built in the igneous rock considered as great isolation material. If you get tired of the Maronti beach you can walk to the neighbouring San Angelo, where you can swim as well. Just don’t forget to buy a juice from fresh oranges and lemons with fine crushed ice at the car park.
There are lot of botanic gardens on the island. It is said that the most beautiful and the biggest one is Negombo, but we weren’t there … so we couldn’t make everything. But we were in one cactus garden Ravino in Forio. You can even try the cactus nectar here. There are lot of cactus, so we can recommended it to all who love these plants.
What we also tried were special local wines and liqueurs. The most famous liqueurs are Limonchello (made from lemons) and Melonchello (made from the yellow melon-I don’t like this kind of melon but this liqueur was excellent). We taste dry wine d’Ambra and sweet one Turá, which is sparkling. Both were great and we also bought one, which was strawberry Vino da Tavola.
