The hour the islands turn gold

There is a terrace above Pollara on the west side of Salina where, somewhere around seven in the evening between May and October, the light comes in low across the water and everything turns the colour of the wine they make on the terraces below it.

Nothing happens. That is the point. The islanders do not have a name for it because it happens every day, and the idea of naming a thing that happens every day would strike them as absurd.

Planning around an hour instead of a list

When I ran the hotel I watched a great many guests miss it. They would be on a boat that got back at eight, or halfway up Fossa on Vulcano, or sitting in the port at Lipari waiting for a hydrofoil. They had a wonderful week and they never once saw the thing I would have sent them for.

So when I started planning trips instead of letting rooms, I inverted the structure. The boats come back before seven. Dinner starts after eight. The only fixed point in an otherwise loose week is an hour in which nothing is scheduled at all.

The best afternoons in the Aeolians are the ones nobody planned. The trick is leaving room for them.

What this means for an itinerary

Practically, it means we never put a full-day excursion and a dinner reservation on the same day. It means the Stromboli night boat goes on a day with nothing else in it. It means we will sometimes tell you that the thing you asked for is fine but it will cost you the terrace, and let you decide.

• Two arranged things a week, not two a day
• Boats back before the light goes
• Three afternoons with nothing in them, on purpose

Travellers tell us afterwards that the empty afternoons were the best part. They are also the hardest thing to sell, which is why most itineraries do not have them.