The Volcano Walking — Hotel in Lipari

Nice volcano, the tour was substandard though.

While I do not regret taking part in the volcano tour, this was not a good experience. It started in the registration office where an overweight guy in a blue shirt with obvious bad temper was leaving a bad first impression. Luckily, he turned out not be be the tour guide.

After paying almost 40€ for tour fee (Helmet included) + shoe rental + headlight rental we were sent outside to get the shoes and then we waited. For almost an hour! While nobody told us anything about when the tour would start.

Then finally, two guides came and made an announcement in Italian and French and a very short announcement in English. To quote "I will try to speak English now". Then the tour started. During the entire tour, there were no further announcements or comments by the guides. We made 2-3 stops and they never said anything. The last stop was quite lengthy and also no announcement like "we will be here for 30 minutes" or "ok, guys, we will be leaving in 2 minutes, get ready".

On the way down, they started to distribute masks against the dust, but again with no explanation why these would be needed. On the way down, suddenly the whole group had to stop. It was unclear why; maybe someone was missing someone else? Or the count if everyone was present had to be redone? Also no announcement, just everyone stops and then after 10 minutes of wondering what is going on start again.

Why can't these people open their mouths? I am sure there would be lots of interesting stuff to tell during the breaks - apart from not even telling us BASIC INFORMATION about what is going on.

The way down was pretty rad, the group was RUNNING down a path with extremely poor visibility (dust) on an underground which was mostly sand-ish but also often had unexpected stones. I find it incredible that no one was hurt here, the speed was inappropriate for the lack of vision and constantly changing ground (which you could not see).

Overall, they charged a group of 50 people about (50x40€=2000€) for 5 hours of work (2 guides) and for all that money couldn't even open their mouth or speak proper english. Disappointing. Volcano was...

I stayed in one of their rooms and went on the sunset hike. The room was perfectly adequate, with a clean bathroom and comfortable bed. Good AC. There is just a pocket door leading to a hallway where there was a ton of noise in the morning. But overall this is a good value accommodation.

Seeing Stromboli on the hike was amazing. The guide was not too great. I am in moderate shape, but had some difficulty with the hike. I guess I don't do a lot of elevation gain. Going down at night was a problem. The guide took us off a partially-paved path onto a wooded rough dirt path in the dark. I tripped several times on rocks, it was very steep, and my light kept going out due to being automatically dimmed when vegetation went in front of it. If you are on the paved path headed to left and your guide goes right into the vegetation, consider demanding you remain on the paved road. That part is actually not required to have a guide, and its a one way (but longer) trip back to town. Consider leaving your group, even. The guides were OK. They had limited English (I was assigned an Italian tour) so I didn't get...

We did the hike as a group of 7 with Il Vulcano a Piedi, and I’d wholeheartedly recommend them to anyone coming to the island. Antonella was incredibly kind and helpful from the moment we reached out, and Marco, our guide, made the whole experience so much more than just a hike. He didn’t just take us up the volcano – he helped us understand it through explanations about vulcano and the geology of the terrain. The hike itself was one of the highlights of our entire Sicily trip. Climbing up during sunset, watching Stromboli erupt in the dark, and descending by torchlight through the fragrant island trails is something that sticks with you. 10/10...