Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Calder, currently enjoying the breeze and the shade at noon on the lovely Italian island of Ponza.

And today I'm going to talk about my favourite Italian islands and Ponza, which I've never been to until now is certainly one of

them it's about 30 miles east of Naples oh here comes the van let's see if it can squeeze past

interesting figure is full of fish actually and beer which sounds like my sort of place.

Anyway there we are. Yes, about 30 miles east of Naples, far less known than Capri or Iskia.

And there's a ferry that runs here from Naples, which is quite straightforward.

And, well, the bay is beautiful, tiny little beach there.

It's a lovely town on the far side of the island, which you can walk to in, frankly, half an hour.

There is a spectacular beach with cliffs towering above

this lovely sand strip and I saw exactly one bather there. So if you have the effort to come to

Ponza, then you can but there are some gorgeous islands which are actually easier to get to

than here. And I'm going to start with the obvious ones, which you can fly direct, Sicily and

Sardinia. Well, Sicily is one of those places, a bit like Texas, which is part of a country, but actually an intensified

version of it. Bavaria too, if you like, is a bit like that. It's profoundly historic. It's very friendly.

Extremely beautiful.

Goodgiorna.

He wants to be on the podcast, definitely.

The cities, in particular Palermo and Syracusa in the north and to the southeast respectively are the highlights but anywhere you will enjoy Sicily

and the great thing is having seen the island you can then go to the islands the Aeolian Islands

this little archipelago just to the north.

Very volcanic. You can go to Stromboli and walk up an active volcano.

So exciting. And all the other little islands,

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