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Corsica is a really beautiful island full of amazing scenery and turquoise blue sea surrounding the island. But for us it has proven to be the most tiring 2 days so far.
We decided to spend our 3 days cycling around the tip of Cap Corse (the north of the island). The whole route was only about a 130 km, which seemed to be easily doable.
We arrived on the 11th with the ferry around 20.30h. We had looked up that there was a camping ground towards the North some 5 km out of the port. After more then 10 km, having the sun starting to set, we had no option but to pitch our tent on one of the nicest locations that could be found. Right on the waterfront, though high up overlooking the bay. Sensing that Sira was a bit anxious about wild camping, I tried reassuring her by saying that I would sleep lightly and if she couldn't sleep or heard any strange noises to wake me. In the morning however she told me I had been snoring loudly all night in what appeared to be a sound sleep.
The idea was to do about 60 km that day and another 60 the next so that we could end with a short trip as our ferry was to leave early afternoon on our last day.
We got off to an extremely early start having been woken at 5.30 in the morning(Sira couldn't take any more snoring). After noodles for breakfast (no bakery to buy a baguette from) the first 20 or so km were pretty easy going. Then we had to climb to around 360 meters, which gave us a good view of the cape.
The west side of the island was harder to travel as it was much more hilly then we had expected. There were very few towns and we didn't come across any camping grounds. After reaching our 60 km, not having found a single sign indicating that a camping was anywhere to be found, I turned our notebook on and checked our camping guide.
It seemed that we had to cycle for another 30 km before we would reach the first camping on the west coast. In the end we arrived at our camping at about 6 in the evening, a good 12 hours after having set off in the morning and about 90 km. But the camping itself was really nice, right on the sea front. After a swim in the sea, a shower and some heated up ravioli out of a tin, we were ready to call it a day.
On the bright side we only had about 30 km left to get back to Bastia, the port out of which our ferry is to set off. So we looked up a camping ground about 7 km out of town to go to that day. It turned out to only be about 27 km to cycle so we were really pleased that we would have a nice and relaxing day ahead of us.
But it was all in vane. As we were packing the tent the wind was already beginning to pick up. As we set off we soon realized there was a mountain directly ahead of us which we had to cross. With a strong head wind we started climbing and climbing.
After about 3 hours of going up (Sira had to stop quite often as the wind was a bit too strong for her) we reached the top of 536 meters. Our highest point so far.
Corsica is a beautiful island but it has taught us that we need to research our routes a little more thoroughly.
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