The Greenest Island
- Marco Silvano
- Jun 27
- 2 min read
Everyone knows Stromboli. The volcano that never sleeps, the glowing crater, the dramatic silhouette against the night sky. Everyone knows Panarea — the jet-set island, the white cubist houses, the people who arrive by private boat and leave by private boat and are photographed doing both. These are the Aeolian Islands the world has decided to notice.
Salina noticed something else a long time ago. It noticed that the right response to being one of the most beautiful places on earth was not to shout about it. It is the greenest island in the archipelago — two extinct volcanic peaks draped in vegetation, terraced vineyards climbing the slopes, caper fields running down to the sea. Il Postino was filmed here. That tells you everything about the light.
I first came to Salina to stay at Hotel Signum in Malfa, which is the kind of place that ruins you for other hotels. The Caruso family have been building it since 1988, adding rooms as instinct dictated, and the result is something that feels grown rather than designed. Martina Caruso's Michelin-starred kitchen draws on the island itself — the capers, the Malvasia grape, the catch from the port below — and the result is cooking that tastes unmistakably of this place. I ate on the terrace with Stromboli erupting gently on the horizon, a glass of Malvasia in hand, and felt genuinely sorry for everyone who wasn't there.
The second time I came, I stayed at Capofaro — the Tasca d'Almerita family's vineyard estate on the northeastern headland, fifteen acres of Malvasia vines around a 19th-century lighthouse. Stromboli and Panarea framed on the horizon. Sunset wine tastings on the terrace. The Don Felipe motor yacht for excursions. The particular quiet of a place that has decided it doesn't need to try.
Salina will not compete with the other islands for your attention. It doesn't have to. Come here and you will understand why the people who know it best come back every year, and tell almost no one.
— Marco Silvano
