May 3 1998
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Flowers
Lipari City and Vulcano
Checking out an Obsidian Flow
I wondered if I would be standing on a river of black frozen glass, but there is nothing like that. After a first disappointment we begin finding Obsidian, though not the completely black stuff which looks like dark glass. Obsidian is not always dark black, but very often covered with a red layer of oxidized minerals rich in iron.
Block of Obsidian
Stack of Obsidian
Some Blocks of Obsidian
Pumice Shipping Facility
The White Fields are killing fields, too. The powder find dust collected in the lungs of the workers, killing them before they where 50.
Pumice Quarry
At Bagno Seco, kaolin earth which is a major ingredient of porcelain had been mined. But the material here is coloured, low grade stuff which doesn't make for fine bone china.
Cave di Caolino
Low grade? The earth is tinted in the most beautifull colours, ranging from brown over red and pink to yellow and almost white. As I explore further down the steep valley, a famous stench insults my nose. Sure enough, I find a couple of small vents where sulfurous steam is hissing into the air.
Nearby are the heavily vandalized remnants of a remote sensing station, and some low walls and boards. It's not before I realize the meaning of Bagno Seco: it's a "dry bath", a steam bath, which has been used by the locals for years and years. Maybe that's the reason the sensing station has been destroyed, people not wanting their favourite place being monitored.
Collection Chrystals
San Calogero, Inlet
The heating for the bronze age sauna is simple, effective and 100% environmentally friendly. Hot thermal water enters the room at the rear.
San Calogero, Outlet
A small channel collects the water and guides around one third of the curved walls. Then it flows into a small basin before it leaves the building.
Kitty
Kitty
Anita at Breakfast
We like our hotel room, especially because it rains in the late afternoon and the night.
We decide to go on a tour around Lipari the second time, and we do it counter clockwise.
Quattrochi Vista
Quattrochi is the name of a famous lookout, and it literally translated means "four eyes", which is probably the amount you need to grab the whole view.
Quattrochi Vista with Us
Pink Flowers, Lipari
These wall flowers here give a good impression what most houses and gardens in Lipari look like. There are flowers everywhere, and again I think to come in spring has been a good choice.
Back home, I hear the temperatures in Sicily exeeded 40°C. By then, all the vegetation is burned, and the green hills will have turned into yellow deserts.
Anita and Flowers
No wall flower at all, Anita sits in the blooming green. What in other places only grows in hothouses with constant care, here grows like weed in the hairneedle bends of a road.