Aeolian Islands

Stromboli has been erupting almost continuously for somewhere between two and five thousand years, throwing a glow on the night sky every fifteen to twenty minutes that earned it its old name, the Lighthouse of the Mediterranean. It's the most-watched of the seven volcanic islands that make up the Aeolian archipelago off the north coast of Sicily, all of them UNESCO-listed in 2000. Lipari is the largest and the only one with a substantial town and a working marina. Salina, the next-most lived-on, is best known for the Malvasia vineyards on its volcanic slopes and for the cove of Pollara, where Il Postino was filmed in 1994. Panarea is where the smaller boats and bigger names go in late August, while Vulcano draws guests for its sulphur baths and black-sand beaches. Filicudi and Alicudi sit at the quietest end of the chain, with empty anchorages and a pace closer to a 1950s fishing village than to anything you'd expect of a luxury charter destination.

Because the islands sit close together, a yacht can take in all seven in a week without long passages between them. Most charters spend a night or two off Panarea before sailing out at dusk to round Stromboli once it's properly dark, when the volcano puts on the show that brought you in the first place. The quieter end of the chain, around Filicudi, is where you head to escape the August crowds, anchoring in coves that more or less belong to whichever yacht arrives first; La Canna, the 71-metre sea stack off the west coast, is the landmark most captains anchor next to.

Several of the islands sit inside marine protected areas, which means anchoring is restricted in some bays during the summer months. A good captain books the mooring buoys well in advance, so the yacht still spends its nights in the prettier coves rather than the overflow ones. The season runs May to October, with June and September the quieter working months, and most charters set off from Milazzo or Capo d'Orlando on the Sicilian mainland.