We finally arrived at Stromboli around 5:45pm and they told us to be back at 8:30 to watch the volcanic eruptions from the boat. We were told we could sit on the nice black sand beach or walk around town and up to the church and get some food. Well, the sun set on the other side of the island, so even if there had been lounge chairs (which there weren’t), and if the beach had been nice (which it wasn’t), we still would not have wanted to sit on the beach because there was no sun! There was also a huge cloud directly over the crater of the volcano and it would not move and it kept getting worse as it got later! The entire sky was clear except for over the volcano! We started by sitting in a bar on the beach and drank strawberry granitas, and then we made our way up the hill into town. We walked around the big church and then made our way down to the beach- there was really nothing to see or do except sit on the beach (full of cigarette buts and trash with no lounge chairs) or shop. By 7:15pm we had seen the entire town and were really hungry but no place was open for dinner until 8pm! We finally found the 1 restaurant that was open around 7:40pm and we made them rush our food so we could make our 8:30pm boat. It was actually really good and Jeanine finally got chicken for the first time in over a week (no more pasta for me!). We walked very quickly back down to the dock and made it in time to get on the boat as it pulled up. The boat pulled out so we could watch the eruptions, and we saw nothing! Apparently it’s one of the most active volcanoes- erupting every few minutes- and we could see nothing because of the big cloud. It was a very disappointing day. We got back around 10:40pm and walking back to our hotel we saw both Elena and Diana- we told them how bad it was and that we would not recommend it to anyone.