...and here we are!

A photo gallery telling the most beautiful story of the world

The day after I first met Giada, I visited Stromboli for the third time in my life. That's me on Pizzo sopra la Fossa, the "inofficial" summit of the volcano (it's not the highest point of it but commonly, all climbs end there), 7 November 1990.

Okay, figure that: a man who is crazy for volcanoes since the age of 10, meets a beautiful young woman on the island of VULCANO, the place that gave name to all of those mountains in the world. It happened that way on the afternoon of 6 November 1990.

This is how Giada looked like when we first met, in early November 1990. Our first encounter was at Vulcano where I saw her in the mudpond near Porto Levante, on the 6th. This photo was taken at her home at Marina Corta, Lipari, on 9 November 1990.

One of the first photos of us together, taken in Roma on 1 December 1990. Compare the way we looked with the more recent photos... Photo was taken by Mariarosa Giuntoli, Giada's mother

On Stromboli again, 29 August 1991. I made the tremendous but dangerous approach to the craters together with Jon Dehn who took the photo right on the rim of Crater 3. Obviously, he caught me in a somewhat thinkful moment.

For about three years, our contact remains sporadic but then dramatically intensifies. During a 4 months period we send each other at least 100 letters, then we meet again.

Under a full moon, on the summit of Stromboli that has its strongest activity in many years, we kiss the first time, at about 0300 on the morning of 22 August 1994.

Coming back from our visit to Stromboli on the afternoon of 22 August 1994, Giada was plainly exhausted. In the evening, when we were staying with friends, it was me who was close to pass away while Giada had already recovered.

Visiting Cologne (Köln), Germany, 29 September 1994. Here we are in front of the famous, and quite suggestive, Cathedral of that city.

Giada, near the village of Pirrera (Lipari), 22 September 1995. Is the company producing "Levissima" tablewater going to pay us for making this kind of publicity...?

We chose 17 April 1995 for our official engagement party, at Lipari. The event was witnessed by a few close relatives and friends from Lipari. I guess, normally Sicilian engagement parties involve several hundred people which is surely the case during Sicilian weddings. I hope we will get away with no more than hundred...

Our "official" engagement party, 17 April 1995, at Lipari. This is the moment when I put the engagement ring on Giada's finger, declaring "officially" that I was well aware of the purpose of the engagement procedure: this is going to lead to our wedding, in September 1997.

Proudly presenting, and still wondering about, our engagement rings. They were made mostly by Mrs. Giuntoli and are unique, as is our love story.

Giada doing the "photomodel pose" at the small San Bartolo church, Lipari, in late August 1994. This was during the first week of our relationship, in late August 1994.

Returning from a visit to Vulcano in a small boat owned by a friend on Lipari, 18 April 1995. Vulcano is seen in the background. The horizontal lines cutting through our faces are due to a problem with rewinding the film.

Another photo of myself on Pizzo sopra la Fossa, during the hour after midnight on 20 April 1995. Activity was much less spectacular than during our previous visit (on 22 August 1994) but every 10-30 minutes, there was a neat lava fountain from one of the vents.

Our classic photo on the summit of Stromboli, 20 April 1995. This is the place where we usually stay overnight ("usually"? well, three times so far...), a place that lies on the back side of Pizzo sopra la Fossa and provides protection for the heads from falling tephra in the case of a larger eruption. It was in this place that we kissed the first time, eight months before this photo was taken.

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