After sweltering for a week in Nice with great views but difficult access to the both the beach and the waterfront cafes, we hopped on the ferry for Corsica.
If your high school geography is a bit rusty, Corsica is French and is the northern-most of the two islands in the Mediterranean between France and Italy. Sardinia, the larger and more southerly island, is Italian. But war and conquest being what they are, French Corsica is as Italian as Italian Sardinia is French. The history and the language are interchangeable and the population, bilingual.
We departed Nice at the very civilised hour of 11.30 am. The boat doesn't look very big from the level of the quay.
We queued with a thousand other cars all going to Bastia, the main port of northern Corsica.
Unlike the ferry chaos that is Greece, this mob pre-sorts the cars from the trucks and the big cars from the little cars and the cars with roof boots from the cars with trailers and keeps the motor cycles away from everybody else.
It was a big boat and two or three vehicles drove up the boarding ramp at the same time. Paul did everything he could to be last on and therefore first off.
Packed in like sardines!
There was one deck of cars above us and two below. About 250 cars per deck. It takes about 50 minutes to load 1,000 vehicles.
Here are the four lanes facing the pointy end of the boat. These are four of the eight lanes on this deck. The other four lanes have already turned and are facing the rear, ready to drive off. Once they exit, these four lanes can swing around in the space in which they parked and exit also.
If you ever have cause to wonder about the ability of person-kind to continue its existence on this earth, you only need observe the loading and unloading of a ferry. It is difficult to believe how our species has been so singularly successful in colonising the planet given the inability of so many people to do the simplest of tasks - like follow safety instructions given by a person standing at the driver's window, manoeuvre a vehicle for which they have obtained a driving licence, wait their turn, be courteous to others, extract the goods they desire to take with them from their own vehicle within the time given them to do so, climb three flights of stairs, find the seat allocated to them and sit in it, not in someone else's seat to which they think they are entitled. And to endure the given period of self-elected confinement without starting a riot.
And at the end of this short trip of five hours, to locate the vehicle they arrived in and without damaging any of the vehicles surrounding it, to open the doors and climb in. I shall not mention an ability to perform a three-point turn and drive to the exit within the straight lines marked for that purpose, because those tasks aren't always easy.
Nor shall I mention the appalling mess person-kind makes of everything it encounters on this short journey - from toilets to cafes to stairwells to children's play areas to the car decks - it is a disgrace. It reflects the attitude that "I have the right to do anything I want, without consequence" and it demonstrates how almost impossible it is going to be for this planet to survive the current levels of human consumption, pollution and waste.
But on a brighter note ..........
We left the ferry at Bastia, on the north east coast and the gateway to the north.
Being amongst the first cars off, and because we were staying in Bastia for the night, we were parked and settled in our hotel in the time it took the ferry to unload, re-load and sail away.
On Sunday morning we joined the locals in the square for coffee before heading north.
The northern cape of Corsica is called Cap Corse. It is ruggedly beautiful and largely undeveloped. In 2011 we made this same trip but were ill prepared for what Cap Corse offered. The weather back then was bleak and we drove about 40km north and then gave up and turned south for the sun. This time though, the weather was clear and hot and we drove north from Bastia to the very point of the Cap and then down the west coast.
The coast north of Bastia is rocky and steep and the water difficult to access.
But if you can find a way down, the rocks and little coves are idyllic.
This one was particularly gorgeous, a little beach, smooth rocks and a bit of shade, so we marked it out for a future visit.
Old, old towers like this are dotted all over the Cap. Villages are scarce, weather-worn but pretty.
We stopped for lunch at Centuri, a tiny port on the north-west tip of the cape.
To its great credit, this village still supports two fishing boats and a local fresh fish seller. So of course we had a seafood platter for lunch - that's why we came.
The buildings are old and well-weathered.
The wind is harsh, I imagine.
We drove all afternoon and arrived at the village of Galéria on the east coast, just south of Calvi, at 8.00 pm. Our average speed for the day was 43 kilometres per hour at an altitude of about 200 metres, through the beautiful mountains. In most places the road was excellent as a result of resurfacing for the Tour de France two years ago, and the views spectacular.
These ladies of Galéria and their little ones welcomed us to town.
Not too many hotels left like this one. No hot water, no air-con, no fan, one table leg 30mm shorter than the others and .......
Whoops!
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