Inspiration: discover the Blog

Volcanoes, caper vineyards and silent coves — a week in the seven islands that sit, half-forgotten, between Sicily and the open Tyrrhenian. There is a particular kind of anchorage one can take, in the late afternoon, in the small bay below the village of Pollara on the western flank of Salina, that is among the more memorable anchorages in the central Mediterranean. The cliff rises seven hundred metres above the sea on one side. The volcano of Filicudi smokes faintly to the w

A seven-day Mediterranean passage at the season's first crest — the route, the anchorages, the meals taken on deck. There is a week most years, falling somewhere between the close of the Cannes Film Festival and the opening of the Monaco Grand Prix, when the western Mediterranean is at its most seductively underused. The boats are in the water. The harbour towns are open. The mistral has eased. The temperature is a perfect twenty-three by midday. And yet the heavy charter sea