After an "easy day" in the Corsican capital of Ajaccio, we continued our journey south to re-visit the island's third, smallest and prettiest port, Bonifacio.
Our 'easy day' in Ajaccio included a 70km round trip to Peri (where else but up in the mountains) to find a restaurant that we saw on SBSTV and to see if we could make a reservation.
The restaurant owner was so nice, that when we said we had seen her on television and come all the way from Australia to eat at her restaurant, she gave us a free beer and let us sit on her beautiful, cool shady terrace, even though she was closed.
And what a terrace it was!
Possibly the most beautiful I have seen - stone walls, stone paving, shaded by pine and plum trees and planted with Corsican herbs, fragrant gardenia, fuchsia and hydrangea.
Although in 34° heat the assistance of numerous umbrellas was required to keep the temperature under control.
From the cool, quiet terrace in the mountains we went to the hot, noisy beach. Paul had a swim while I read my book and watched these very skillful, very fit and very verbal young men play soccer-volleyball.
At 7.00 pm the whole dynamic of this place changed. The entire under 40's beach culture went home, the bar staff knocked off, the food staff came on duty, and with the help of some stylish place mats and glasses, the beach-bar shack morphed into a restaurant. So we stayed for dinner.
The next day we continued south to Bonifacio, the jumping off point for Sardinia and the southern most part of Corsica. On the way Paul filled our water bottles at the natural spring in the mountains near Corsica's main water bottling plant, St George. Lovely water.
Accommodation was almost impossible to get in Bonafacio, even six months ago (January 2015) when we booked this hotel. So we had to take a ridiculously expensive room with a wonderful view of the marina, directly above the waterfront restaurants. The cheap and moderately priced accommodations always go first - what remains gets more and more expensive.
This was an extremely busy and popular port for pleasure boats. We walked around the harbour in blistering late afternoon heat looking at the citadel on the cliff top.
I'll get Wikipedia to help me here with a photograph of the cliffs and some information about the town:
"The southern coast of Corsica, around Bonifacio is an outcrop of chalk-white limestone, precipitous and sculpted into unusual shapes by the ocean. Slightly further inland the limestone adjoins the granite of which the two islands, Sardinia and Corsica, are formed.
The port of Bonifacio is a drowned ravine of fjord-like appearance separated from the ocean by a finger-like promontory. In prehistoric post-glacial times when sea levels were low and the islands were connected, the ravine was part of a valley leading to upland Corsica. The maximum draught supported by the harbor is 3.5 meters, more than ample for ancient ships and modern small vessels.
The city of Bonifacio is split into two sections. The old town, on the site of the citadel, is located on the promontory overlooking the Mediterranean. The citadel was built in the 9th century and included the original city. The Citadel has been reconstructed and renovated many times since its construction and most recently was an administrative center for the French Foreign Legion. Today it is mostly a museum. Historically, most of the inhabitants have resided in the new town on the harbour, under the citadel. The harbour facilities and residential areas, la marine, line the narrow shelf of the inlet and extend for some distance up the valley.
The fortifications also extend for some distance along the cliff-tops, which are at about 70 meters elevation. The cliffs have been undercut by the ocean so that the buildings, which have been placed on the very lip of the precipice, appear to overhang it. The appearance from the sea is of a white city gleaming in the sun and suspended over the rough waters below."
A close-up look at that weathered limestone in a parking area behind some buildings in the marina.
Another eroded hill, behind the Capitainerie.
The main square in the lower town has just been repaved and is very handsome.
Spotted this three phase water filter on one of the bigger boats.
We finally escaped the heat in a waterside watering hole and watched dozens of small craft berth at the marina in the late afternoon. This town is the only "upmarket" spot in all of Corsica and both physically and ecologically, it is stretched to the limit.
In the late evening, just before sunset, this huge private yacht backed (because it was too big to drive in and turn) all the way up the harbour to tie up at the Capitainerie. And like every the person in Bonifaccio that night, we walked up the quay to have a look at it.
So big and so luxurious, it was almost obscenely decadent - a rough estimate from the locals calculated that the annual running costs would be about $5 million per year.
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