The beautiful island of Salina
Salina is at the center of the Aeolian Islands, and is the second for extension and population after Lipari. It is divided into three municipalities, Santa Marina Salina, Malfa and Leni, and has a total of about 2300 inhabitants. The first to emerge from the sea - about 450 thousand years ago - has the highest peak of the archipelago, Mount "Fossa delle Felci" (961 m.), which with the Mount “dei Porri" (860 m.), both craters off by the typical conical shape, forming two twin mountains which derives its ancient greek name Didỳme, which means, of course, twins. Instead, the current name, derives from the lake of Lingua from where the salt was extracted. From the excavations carried out, at the end of the last century, revealed settlements dating from the Neolithic period, time from which the island was inhabited by people coming from Sicily and other people who have left rich testimonies. A village of the average of the Bronze Age, discovered previously and located on a steep slope of the eastern side of the island, can be visited in a scenario that evokes strong emotions. From the fourth century BC, in Santa Marina in particular, have settled the Greeks and then the Romans (third century BC), in fact are visible the thermae in the neighbourhood of the beach, while other historical objects are kept in the local "Museo Civico ". Around the seventh century AD, Salina was the most populated of the Aeolian Islands, because Lipari, at that time, was abandoned by the majority of its population owing to a significant volcanic activity. The Arab invasion caused a deep recession until, around the seventeenth century, it returned to be populate. Salina is the most fertile island of the Aeolian Islands, growing fine grapes from which we get a wine of sweet taste, the famous "Malvasia", and capers, exported throughout the world. About 1980, the Sicilian Region has set up the “Oriented Natural Reserve of Salina”. Important resource for the island is tourism, and Salina is famous throughout the world because, here, Massimo Troisi filmed the shooting of his last and most famous film “Il Postino”.
