We stayed two nights and could not have picked a better place to get over travel from NZ. You must spend an evening on the terrace at the Santa Isabel (3 minutes) and eat at A' Lumeredda (<10 minutes up the path). We bused from Santa Marina and they came looking for us. They also provided a ride back to SM to catch an early ferry departure. Just a great place to relax.

My boyfriend and I spent a long time looking for accommodation on Salina that would fit into our price range and when I finally came up with this place I had a feeling we were onto a winner.

It so delightful - it's one of those places you almost don't want to tell other people about because you want to keep it just for yourself. We stayed in one of the apartments away from the main house, with our own little courtyard with a table and chairs and a hammock for whiling away siestas. The view from out room was idyllic - a shock of bright flowers, the gnarled old tree and beyond that, just rolling hills down to the sea.

We were working to a pretty tight budget, which is hard to do in the Aeolian Islands (go out of peak season to get much better deals on hotels etc - May/June or late September) but this place was great for that. We didn't hire transport - we just got the island bus up to Malfa from the port. It dropped us off in town but we phoned the delightful proprietor and he came to pick us up in his battered old car. It's actually a REALLY easy walk into town, but it's hard to find the Gelso if you don't know where you're going. Once you know which of the winding little tracks leads to and from the town (I say town, it's more like a village) you'll probably find yourself doing it a few times each day. The bus does actually also stop outside the main gate but it's after it's been through Malfa town - if you're more sensible than us and actually pluck up the courage to ask the bus driver, he'll most likely tell you where to get off!

Our room was cool, quite sparse and utterly charming, with a comfortable double bed, beautiful clean sheets and a lovely bathroom. There's also a tiny fridge. If you are trying to claw back a bit of money while you're here, our most idyllic nights were when we got a picnic dinner from town, which we ate on our patio, then as the sunset we took wine up onto the breakfast patio above the apartments and watched the sun setting and Stromboli darkening against the horizon. You can get lovely bread, cheese, ham, basil, tomatoes, peaches and wine from town - even pizza slices and cake.

That said, there are some lovely restaurants in Malfa, advertised all round town. We ate twice on the outdoor terrace of A' Lumeredda (it's signposted from all over town). There's a bar or two next to the main square. I think the posher hotels also have good eating open to non residents.

The shops take long siestas though, and the bakery does often sell out of bread, so make sure you're shopping at the right times. There's a bakery, supermarket, grocery, delicatessen and a couple of other shops (oh, including one that does lovely ice creams down by the main square). If you're wanting to get around the island, there's also bus timetables in most shop windows, rather helpfully - but don't expect them to run entirely on time - factor in 15mins or so.

There's no pool, but the main Malfa beach (which is very pebbly) is pretty much just across the road at the end of the driveway (um, and down a cliff path, but you'll come to expect that in the Aeolians). At the bottom, there's a little bar which does drinks and food for lunch, in case you don't fancy slogging back up to eat, and also hires umbrellas and lilos - esecially for sitting on the rocky beach all day.

Finally, there's a hotel which looks out over said beach, also just at the bottom of Gelso's drive, can't remember what it's called, but it's a nice place to stop for a drink at sunset and watch the sea below. I think we spent a full day's budget on two G&Ts and two whiskys.

I hope I've given an idea of how utterly perfect this place is! We've stayed in some gorgeous places before but our time on Salina is one of the loveliest bits of holiday we've ever had. It's not high high class, you know, but it's completely charming and we just loved it.