The beloved 1994 Italian film, Il Postino, remains a timeless tribute to the ennobling power of the well-turned poetic phrase. Set on a small island in Italy, it starred Massimo Troisi as the shy titular postman who develops a friendship with exiled Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (known for his richly sensuous love verses and controversial politics). The movie was essentially a fictionalized account loosely based on Neruda’s brief stay in a villa on Capri combined with elements of Antonio Skarmeta’s 1985 novel, Ardiente Paciencia (Ardent Passion). It played with time and location, most notably a different era and setting from Skarmeta’s book.
No matter. The movie remains a classic work of cinematic art and a living memorial to actor Massimo Troisi, who died of heart failure shortly after he completed shooting. His humble soul seems to be enshrined where Il Postino was partially filmed: Salina, the most serene and picturesque of Sicily’s Aeolian Islands. My husband Joe and I have traveled often to these dramatic volcanic patches of land. As admirers of Il Postino and its Academy Award-winning, bandoneon-inflected score by Luis Enriquez Bacalov, we fell in love with Salina’s lush vegetation and dramatically sloping cliffs -- especially in and around the film’s famed Pollara district. Though some of the area’s signature gorges have sadly eroded due to over-tourism, we’ve been fortunate to view the natural film set from a distance and often alone. Our favorite season to visit is autumn when the tourism frenzy of August has dispersed and the temperatures can still reach the upper 80s and 90s.
The island is book-ended by two dormant volcanoes: Monte Fossa delle Felci and Monte Pirri. Covered in thick green flora and almost identical in shape, they were called Didyme (Twins) by the ancient Greeks. The volcanoes give Salina, smack in the middle of the Tyrrhenian Sea, an elevated yet grounded feel. On one of our first excursions, a 20-minute aliscafo ride from Lipari dropped us at the larger Santa Marina port, marked by a quaint church of the same name where we stopped in to find a group of young art restorers chatting and giggling as they repainted some of the more worn holy statues. Then we headed right back outside in search of the nearest beach.
A small road, with its requisite multicolored shops (most selling stills of Philippe Noiret’s Neruda stooping with avuncular empathy toward Troisi’s introverted postman), led to a grocery store. Here we purchased bread, prosciutto and pecorino cheese, along with a plastic bag filled with black olives bathed in olive oil, oregano and crushed red pepper. We brought our stash to the Punta Barone beach, with its tranquil promenade and rocky shores. Every time the tide rolled in and out, little crabs scurried across our feet. We faced the active volcanic island of Stromboli head on and felt like we were sunbathing at the ends of the earth. Despite the danger of a lava shower, Stromboli from this perspective seemed a benevolent shield against discord.
Later, as Joe and I ambled back to Santa Marina, we stopped to admire a gray cat nursing her kittens on a stoop in front of a ramshackle appliance store. Suddenly a robust elderly man (allegedly in his 80s but looking not a day over 60) emerged from the beaded doorway. Resembling the actor Walter Matthau, he greeted us and cheerfully obliged when I asked if I could photograph the silken-furred mother cat. We then began a lively conversation and learned of his many travels as a merchant marine. He proudly announced his name, Umberto Re (which literally means King Umberto), and invited us into his store for a glass of malvasia, the Aeolian Islands’ much-coveted desert wine produced on Salina.
Among the scattered kitchen gadgets stood mismatched jars of capers, a big red scale and pictures of Padre Pio. We inquired about getting to the Pollara area to see the house where Il Postino was filmed, and he recommended either a motor scooter or taxi at the same time intimating that the villa had become a rather crowded cinematic pilgrimage site. Umberto left us with a gift of his homemade malvasia wine.
Joe and I decided to take a taxi, driven by a Zen-like middle-aged woman, to Pollara. We were happy with our decision, considering the steep curving roads and height of the cliffs that turned beachcombers below into ants. It was nice to just relax and take in the sights and smells of Salina’s dense green foliage and thick clusters of bougainvillea and hydrangea bushes. Incidentally, Salina is named for its abundance of salt, a necessary preservative for fish and capers. We drove around the gorges where Il Postino was filmed and understood the island’s quiet splendor. We stopped in a deserted field, punctuated by rocks and high shafts of wheat, and gazed down at the fictionalized Neruda’s house dwarfed by its spectacular natural surroundings.
From this vantage point, we were standing in the middle of a map of the Aeolian Islands. We could see all the others, including the uninhabitable islands of Basiluzzo and Strombolicchio. We got swept into the heart of a geological wonder as we stood poised at the crossroads of civilizations great and small. Then, in a heartbeat, we wound back down to earth and caught an aliscafo back to Lipari.
But a part of us remained on Salina, undeniably our favorite of the Aeolian Islands, to the point where we contemplated buying a house here. We’ve also spent time looking at homes on the most remote islands of Alicudi and Filicudi (both tiny specks with all-encompassing views of the ocean, roads in the form of wobbly cobblestone mule paths, and the sparsest of amenities). At least Salina bustles with a fairly substantial swell of humanity. Joe and I have probably done as much house hunting as sightseeing in Italy – ultimately accepting the fact that we could never settle anywhere permanently because we love so many different parts of the country.
Nevertheless, on a more recent trip, we looked at the closest thing to our dream house: a villa on Salina in the Leni district accessed through a smaller marina called Rinella. A custodian met us at a slightly hidden beach to show us this spacious white-stucco property literally hanging over the ocean. But not only did such unadulterated beauty come with a steep price tag, it came with a steep price: at least a one-mile walk up a dirt-and-gravel path from the beach to the villa’s front door. Car access was impossible, prompting us to consider purchasing a mule.
On this particular trip, we also met with an aggressive woman trying to sell off what appeared to be various inherited properties. The closet-sized condos, with burnished patches of grass and no ocean views, are not even worth discussing. But one dreary apartment truly raised our ire. Located more in the center of Leni, it emitted a musty, drab air – a stuffy old residence out of a Pirandello story…and not renovated since. One room sported a floor covered in hay, and the kitchen was 19th century museum quality. The only view turned out to be a corner of a church with an oddly detached neoclassical façade. The saleswoman took great pride in the apartment’s sturdy authentic Aeolian materials. But we couldn’t imagine going backwards…no matter how rustically romantic it sounded. I mean, our grandparents left similarly cramped hovels to start a new life in America; what a baffling irony to think our generation would return to the same kind of abode and pay an inflated price to boot.
Disappointing real estate experiences aside, we remain passionate about Salina – especially the sweeping Valdichiesa neighborhood with its regal Spanish-Baroque church and the island’s verdant heart-pounding topography. We enjoy al fresco lunches of grilled calamari and rigatoni alla mollica (with toasted breadcrumbs) at the oceanfront Ristorante Portobello along Santa Marina, and wrap up our day trips with coffee and cannoli at the elegant Old World Antica Pasticceria Materazzo. We’ve lounged on empty beaches, the sun and soft breezes constant companions, and taken long bracing walks across elevated trails, some dotted with Neolithic ruins – a multisensory intoxication, like the poetry of Pablo Neruda.
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Next up: Vulcano
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