Just off the west coast of Sicily, the glossy Italian fantasy runs out of breath amid spawning bluefins and African winds. Instead, the Egadi islands are feral in-between lands of phantasmagoric rock and chameleonic waters, set in Europe’s largest marine reserve.

Beneath the surface, Neptune grass writhes like cilia, sweeping forth shipwrecked relics – Phoenician, Roman, Norman, Arab, Aragonese – so common that they are used by some locals as paperweights. Isles that feel so far out... and yet, Favignana, the largest, is only a half-hour hydrofoil ride from Sicily’s Trapani.